At the end of the Regina Caeli prayer on April 10, 2023, Pope Francis prayed for peace in Ireland on the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, also known as the Belfast Agreement. He called for the treaty to be strengthened for the benefit of all the people of the island.
“With a grateful spirit, I pray to the God of peace that this historic passage may be consolidated for the benefit of all men and women on the island of Ireland,” the Pontiff said in his brief message.
The so-called Good Friday Agreement was signed April 10, 1998, by British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern, and leading representatives of the nationalists (Sinn Féin and the Social Democratic and Labour Parties) and the unionists (the Ulster Unionist Party, the Ulster Democratic Party and the Progressive Unionist Patriarch). The agreement ended the armed struggle and provided a democratic solution after years of conflict between Irish Catholics and British Protestants.
In recent years, the agreement has been discussed again because of Brexit, which took effect in 2020. The British exit from the European Union has led to the questioning of some of the provisions found in 1998, especially regarding the mobility of the Irish, the independence of Northern Irish institutions and economic cooperation between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland – which is still a member of the European Union.
And today we celebrate...