Waite says ‘proceed with caution’ over papal visit to North

If a papal visit to Ireland is being considered it must be timed so as not to “resurrect old ghosts” in Northern Ireland, former hostage negotiator Terry Waite has warned, writes Sarah Mac Donald.

Speaking ahead of his keynote address to an international conference hosted by the Irish Churches’ Peace Project (ICPP) in Belfast last week, Waite said if Pope Francis were to come to Ireland as “a simple pastor then more people of all persuasions might be more open to it”.

The former envoy for the Archbishop of Canterbury, who negotiated the release of hostages from Libya and Lebanon in the 1980s, warned that 2016, which marks the centennial of the Easter Rising, “could resurrect old ghosts”. He paid tribute to Pope Francis, who he said had got “rid of some of the accumulated junk” surrounding the papacy.