Newspaper articles do not normally bring tears to my eyes, but last Sunday one did.

I was in Boca Raton, Florida and noticed a story in the Sun-Sentinel about two teenage boys from Northern Ireland who were spending a month with a local family. What made this event notable was that one of the boys, Owen Carey, was Catholic, and the other, Lee Brunt, was Protestant.

Given the decades of sectarian strife in Northern Ireland, Owen and Lee had little chance of becoming friends back home. But then both boys were enrolled in the Children’s Friendship Project of Northern Ireland (CFPNI), an organization that for 20 years has waged a quiet crusade for peace by bringing Catholic and Protestant youths together on neutral ground.

The nonprofit group pays the teens’ air fares to the United States. Participating American families assume the costs of hosting them while they are here. Since 1987, CFPNI has brought together more than 2,500 Catholic and Protestant teens and their families.

The program is designed to break down ancient prejudices by seeing that the teens interact as much as possible. Among other requirements, they must share a bedroom during their visit with their host American family, and each must attend at least one service at a church of the other’s faith. Thus, the Sun-Sentinel story featured a picture of Owen and Lee attending St. Gregory’s Episcopal Church of Boca Raton, the parish church of their American hosts. Neither boy had attended the other’s church before, and each was rather surprised to find how little difference there was between the two.

A visit to CFPNI’s web site (www.cfpni.org) told me more about the program. Participants are between 15 and 17. Coordinators in Northern Ireland interview and screen applicants based on personal references and written essays. Those selected are paired together based on their geographic proximity, so that they may continue their friendships when they return home. They and their families agree to participate in pre and post cross-cultural activities. The hope is that as the teens become friends, the mutual understanding and goodwill that they generate will spread to their families and neighbors.

Does the program work? The web site reprints some very moving testimonials that participants have written about their experiences. Some even wrote poems. One poem in particular brought tears to my eyes all over again. It began:

Here I am today
with friends I never knew,
trying to make amends
for things we ourselves didn't do.

Perhaps it is only by innocent boys like Owen and Lee “trying to make amends for things they didn’t do” that the recurring cycle of hatred and violence in Northern Ireland can be broken at last. It is at least a good start.