I can't answer on an organisational level in terms of the church hierarchy, however there were many individual priests who worked to support peace.
Peter Taylor in his book "Provos" describes one of the main secret back door go betweens linking the IRA and the Brits was a catholic priest. He is anonymous in the book and as far as I know he is still anonymous.
There are other examples of priests using their position in the community to try and calm things down.
Fr. Edward Daly, later bishop Daly was involved in the civil rights movement, and appears in some of the iconic photos from Bloody Sunday. He has several autobiographies and books about the church in Derry that might give you the insight you are after...might, apologies but I haven't read them so can't say!
During the hunger strikes it was a local priest who stepped in to work with families of the hunger strikes to end it all.
Fr. Alec ried tried, and failed, to prevent the murder of two army corporals at a Republican funeral of people killed two days earlier at gun attack at another Republican funeral.
Fr alec Reid was also working to build links behind the scenes between sinn fein and sdlp to help the peace process.
All these come from "Provos" by Peter Taylor, and are all individuals the book doesn't discuss the hierarchy, and so I can't help there!
"9. Secondly, peace cannot be established by violence, peace can never flourish in a climate of terror, intimidation and death. It is Jesus himself who said : "All who take the sword will perish by the sword" (Mt 26 :52). This is the word of God, and it commands this generation of violent men to desist from hatred and violence and to repent.
I join my voice today to the voice of Paul VI and my other predecessors, to the voices of your religious leaders, to the voices of all men and women of reason, and I proclaim, with the conviction of my faith in Christ and with an awareness of my mission, that violence is evil, that violence is unacceptable as a solution to problems, that violence is unworthy of man. Violence is a lie, for it goes against the truth of our faith, the truth of our humanity. Violence destroys what it claims to defend: the dignity, the life, the freedom of human beings. Violence is a crime against humanity, for it destroys the very fabric of society. I pray with you that the moral sense and Christian conviction of Irish men and women may never become obscured and blunted by the lie of violence, that nobody may ever call murder by any other name than murder, that the spiral of violence may never be given the distinction of unavoidable logic or necessary retaliation. Let us remember that the word remains for ever : "All who take the sword will perish by the sword".
That father Alec one, is that the one where video footage of them getting snatched is in circulation? I seem to remember a car getting barricaded by two black cabs.
I can't answer on an organisational level in terms of the church hierarchy, however there were many individual priests who worked to support peace.
Peter Taylor in his book "Provos" describes one of the main secret back door go betweens linking the IRA and the Brits was a catholic priest. He is anonymous in the book and as far as I know he is still anonymous.
There are other examples of priests using their position in the community to try and calm things down.
Fr. Edward Daly, later bishop Daly was involved in the civil rights movement, and appears in some of the iconic photos from Bloody Sunday. He has several autobiographies and books about the church in Derry that might give you the insight you are after...might, apologies but I haven't read them so can't say!
During the hunger strikes it was a local priest who stepped in to work with families of the hunger strikes to end it all.
Fr. Alec ried tried, and failed, to prevent the murder of two army corporals at a Republican funeral of people killed two days earlier at gun attack at another Republican funeral.
Fr alec Reid was also working to build links behind the scenes between sinn fein and sdlp to help the peace process.
All these come from "Provos" by Peter Taylor, and are all individuals the book doesn't discuss the hierarchy, and so I can't help there!
Pope JPII spoke very strongly against violence in Ireland: https://w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/homilies/1979/documents/hf_jp-ii_hom_19790929_irlanda-dublino-drogheda.html
Excerpt:
That father Alec one, is that the one where video footage of them getting snatched is in circulation? I seem to remember a car getting barricaded by two black cabs.
That's the one. There are some nasty photos too, of Fr Alec with blood on him kneeling over a mutilated corpse.