The Catholic Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland has said victims of Northern Ireland's Troubles must continue to seek an investigation and information recovery process which can be fully trusted and keeps open the door to the pursuit of justice.
Speaking at the annual Mass for the Families of the Disappeared in Saint Patrick's Cathedral in Co Armagh this afternoon, Archbishop Eamon Martin commended the recently published Operation Kenova report, which investigated the alleged activities of a British Army agent within the IRA codenamed Stakeknife.
He said the report highlighted the failure to properly acknowledge the hurt inflicted on families and the lack of disclosure about murder which wouldn’t be tolerated anywhere else.
Critics have focused on the fact that the 7-year Kenova investigation, which cost an estimated £40m, failed to secure any prosecutions.
But Archbishop Martin paid tribute to PSNI Chief Constable Jon Boutcher, who led the Kenova team for most of the investigation.
He said the report "makes it clear that families like yours and others who are coping with the legacy of our conflict simply cannot find peace or trust until the truth emerges, and your loss is properly acknowledged."
Dr Martin added: "Meeting like this, every year, highlights and renews the importance of addressing fully and properly the legacy of our troubled past, and making it clear that we cannot accept the simplistic idea of 'drawing the line’ under our past.
"We must continue to seek an investigation and information recovery process which can be fully trusted by victims and survivors, and which at least keeps the door open to accountability and the pursuit of justice," he said.
"The fact that Jon Boutcher so clearly acknowledges that information about legacy cases has too often been withheld and suppressed, draws attention to your long and painful pursuit of information about precisely where your loved ones were buried - a quest which sadly remains open for some of your families."
The leader of the Catholic Church in Ireland said there was "a long road ahead" to find reconciliation and lasting peace.
He said that if reconciliation is to happen, all families of victims need to continue to be recognised, loved ones appropriately memorialised, and "the truth, however unpalatable, of what happened needs to continue to be unearthed."
This May will mark the 25th anniversary of the Independent Commission for the Location of Victims' Remains, established by the Irish and British governments to find the bodies of 17 people murdered and secretly buried by republican paramilitaries during the Troubles.
The bodies of 13 of the victims, including mother-of-ten Jean McConville, have been recovered.
The victims who have not been recovered are:
Joseph Lynskey, a former Cistercian monk from west Belfast who went missing during the summer of 1972;
Columba McVeigh from Donaghmore in Co Tyrone who was 19 years old when he was abducted and murdered in October 1975;
British Army Captain Robert Niarac, who was abducted and murdered by the IRA in Co Armagh in May 1977;
Seamus Maguire, who went missing from Lurgan in Co Armagh in or around 1973/74.
"The work of the ICLVR down the years is one of the positive outcomes of the Belfast Good Friday agreement," Archbishop Martin said.
"And we are grateful to all who have worked on or with the commission in the painstaking task of finding and returning the bodies of loved ones to their families for a proper Christian burial."
