Ireland's newly elevated Catholic cardinal, Sean Brady, on Wednesday condemned the recent rise in dissident IRA violence in Northern Ireland and appealed to everyone to support security forces in the British territory.Brady, leader of 4 million Catholics in both parts of Ireland, spoke after a meeting of Catholic bishops in Northern Ireland. He became Ireland's third living cardinal in a Vatican ceremony last month.
He said Irish Republican Army dissidents responsible for shooting two police officers in separate ambushes last month had mounted "a direct attack on the right to life and the freedom of all to play their part in the new, agreed institutions of Northern Ireland. Such activity should be condemned by all those who have the good of our society at heart."Both officers survived after being shot while behind the wheel of their personal cars.
They were the first police officers to be shot since 2001 by IRA dissidents, who vow to carry on the IRA's 1970-97 campaign to oust Northern Ireland from the United Kingdom.
Brady said people needed to tell police about dissident IRA activities — an act that the dissidents have threatened to punish with death. He also called on Catholic youths to stop a long-running string of drink-fueled attacks on other emergency services.
"The police and those who provide essential emergency services deserve the support of the whole community, and attacks against them are attacks against us all," he said. "I appeal to anyone who has information about such attacks, whether they are on police officers, ambulance drivers, fire service or medical personnel, to bring it to the police."
For decades Catholics withheld support for Northern Ireland's mostly Protestant police force, but that has changed over the past decade of peacemaking.
A reform program begun in 2001 has already tripled the proportion of Catholic officers to 23 percent.
Sinn Fein, the IRA-linked party that represents most of the province's Catholic minority, earlier this year abandoned its traditional refusal to work with police.
The IRA killed nearly 1,800 people, including 300 police officers, before calling a 1997 cease-fire.
The underground group surrendered its weapons stockpiles and renounced violence in 2005.
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