The leader of the Catholic Church in Ireland has described Queen Elizabeth as a person who modelled reconciliation and took “very courageous steps” and risks for peace.
In a statement issued ahead of attending the funeral of the Monarch, Archbishop Eamon Martin said the Queen was “a courageous peacemaker and a reconciler of difference”.
The Primate of All Ireland told RTE Radio’s Morning Ireland programme that many Catholics in Ireland saw “a woman of great service and faith in Queen Elizabeth”.
In Northern Ireland “huge numbers” of people had gone to Hillsborough to lay floral tributes and had attended the various services of commemoration he explained and added that the Queen was clearly a person who was held in great affection and in very genuine respect and admiration.
“People in the catholic community tend to be very much nationalist and even republican in their political leanings. However, they did see in Queen Elizabeth a woman of great service,” and a very strong woman of faith, he said.
“She had no difficulty whatsoever expressing publicly her faith in Jesus Christ and yet at the same time had great respect for people of all faiths and all traditions and people of no faith. She really saw herself as a servant.”
Speaking about Queen Elizabeth’s visits to Northern Ireland and her historic 2011 visit to the Republic of Ireland, Archbishop Martin said it had endeared her more to the Irish people and she had joined the ranks of those who took risks for peace.
“She was a person who modelled and witnessed to reconciliation,” he said and recalled how on a visit in 2012 to Enniskillen she entered a Catholic church and “extended that hand of friendship”.
Of the Queen’s meeting with Sinn Féin’s Martin McGuinness in 2014, he said it came “at a very difficult time for her and for Martin McGuinness”. She had taken steps to model bridge-building rather than barriers and she sought to redefine relationships while recognising a very deep and wounded past.
“I think it is so important that we don’t forget those achievements and we don’t let them slip away.”
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