Fr. Michael Canny, administrator of St. Eugene’s Cathedral in Derry, said he would like to meet the group to ask its members to “reflect on what you are offering to your own family, to your own friends and to your own supporters.”

“If they get involved in acts of violence and get caught — and get caught they will — they will spend long years languishing in prison,” he said. “So, you are offering darkness and despair and misery to your own people.”

Ronan Kerr, 25, lost his life when a booby-trap bomb exploded under his car in Omagh April 2. His murder brought widespread condemnation and his mother, Nuala Kerr, urged other young Catholics to continue the work of creating a more equal police service.

“This is at a time when we are striving for a neutral police force for the good of our country and I urge all Catholic members not to be deterred by this. We all need to stand up and be counted and to strive for equality,” she said.

For decades, Catholic Church and political leaders refused to support the police in Northern Ireland amid claims of discrimination and intimidation. However, after a swathe of reforms brought about by the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, the hierarchy agreed in 2001 to encourage young Catholics to join the force. Since then, largely due to a special 50-50 Catholic-Protestant recruitment policy, the number of Catholic police officers has risen from just a few per cent to almost 30 per cent.

The Real IRA was formed by former paramilitary members who refused to sign the peace deal that committed all sides to pursue their goals by purely peaceful means. The group insists that nothing short of a full British withdrawal from Northern Ireland will suffice, while mainstream former paramilitaries have embraced the democratic process to fulfill their ambition of a single united Ireland encompassing Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic.

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