³ÉÈËÂÛ̳

Our coverage on Friday's Talk Back of comments by the DUP councillor Roy Gillespie concerning Michael McIlveen, the 15-year old Catholic Ballymena boy in a sectarian attack, has provoked a pretty heated debate on the site.

The debate concerns both the comments by Councillor Gillespie, widely regarded as distasteful and appallingly insensitive, and the Daily Ireland's of those comments. The Daily Ireland's cover story on Friday featured a quotation from the councillor in large print: 'As a Catholic, he [Michael McIlveen] won’t get into heaven . Catholics are not accepted into heaven.' The full quotation, which can be found in reporter Ciaran Barnes's article, read: 'As a Catholic, he [Michael McIlveen] won’t get into heaven unless he has been saved' [emphasis added]. Those additional words clearly make a difference theologically, even if that difference will be understandably lost on a grieving family. In my interview with Councillor Gillespie, he made it clear that precisely the same theological qualification for salvation applies to Protestants too. His point seemed to be that mere membership of a church, whether Catholic or Protestant was in itself insufficent for salvation.

Notwithstanding Mr Gillespie's personal religious beliefs about the after-life and the doctrine of salvation, even many people who agree with his theology have been stunned by the rawness of his outburst just days before the funeral of young Michael McIlveen.