ARTHUR KENT: Thanks, Bob. The will for peace is strong among the majority of people in Northern Ireland, but extremists fear they might lose power if tensions ease, and they're quick to exploit divisions within the community to maintain their influence, especially religious differences -- especially in the town of Ballymena, County Antrim. On one level, County Antrim is pure Irish glory. Here on the slopes of Slemish Mountain, St. Patrick herded animals as a boy. Today, the town of Ballymena is prospering mainly because of its relatively peaceful past.JAMES CURRY (Mayor of Ballymena): I'm not trying to minimize that there have been murders and there were bombings, but compared to other towns in Northern Ireland, we got off relatively easily.
KENT: Father Frank Mullen thought he was getting off easily when he was invited to become the priest of the quiet Church of Our Lady in the Hareville District of Ballymena.
Father FRANK MULLEN (Church of Our Lady): I remember when the bishop was on the phone to me and saying, "Do you think you could come up?" and I say, "Yes, I'd be very happy to go up," and he said -- there seemed to be kind of a sudden, sharp intake of breath at the other end of the phone -- and the bishop said, "You know, it's Hareville." At the time, it didn't mean anything to me, but obviously it meant something to him.KENT: What it means is a 90 percent Protestant community of flag-waving British loyalists where children act out gun battles with the Irish Republican Army. Nestled among these staunchly loyalist households, the Church of Our Lady.
Father MULLEN: And the Republicans treated us as a kind of an act of defiance here, to stick a walping at the Catholic Church.
KENT: The situation exploded when hardline Protestants were prevented from marching to their church in a nearby town. They retaliated by picketing the Church of Our Lady, where Catholics had attended Mass on Saturday nights for years almost unnoticed.
Father MULLEN: History and politics and religion become inextricably mixed up, and the real essence of religion is left out in the cold as a result, you know? It's inherited beliefs, inherited prejudices.
KENT: Protesters mocked the Catholics' connection to Rome and the pope, just as hardline Catholics criticize their rivals' ties to British Protestantism. But as the protests continued, more and more Protestants took a courageous stand in support of their Catholic neighbors. Even Ballymena's Protestant mayor stood alongside the embattled Catholic priest and his congregation.
Mayor CURRY: There were at least 250 ordinary people and about 12 ministers of the Protestant religion all standing there beside me or with me, demonstrating that they also thought the people of Hareville who want to attend Mass on Saturday night should do so with complete freedom.KENT: One of the ministers was Canon Stuart Lloyd.
Canon LLOYD: I must say, I found it very difficult because some of the protesters would have had at least connections with my church.
KENT: A breakthrough came this summer when the cycle of unrest was finally broken. Catholics voluntarily suspended the Mass for two months. Soon after, Protestant loyalists announced that they would cancel two of their political marches.
KENT: Two young priests have replaced Father Frank. They've resumed Saturday night Mass at the Church of Our Lady, supported by a majority of Protestant churchmen in Ballymena, but, Bob, they have also been threatened -- pledged by hardline Protestants that they, too, will resume their protests at the church.
