>*all of which were surrounded by religious fervour.* //
That's absolute crap. The IRA weren't battling to spread Christianity in any way shape or form; some of them may have been Christians however. The Provisional IRA are probably the group most associated with terrorist activity (at least in my lifetime), the Manchester Bombings are probably the event that I most remember from "the troubles". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P...
If you can find any reference to them considering they were waging a war to promote Christianity I'd be very interested; they're mostly associated with Marxism from what I can tell. Here's the Papal view on what you're calling Catholic terrorism (if it contradicts the pope it ain't [Roman] Catholic):
>'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". '
(Pope John Paul II, 1979 visit to Ireland, http://www.vatican.va/holy_fat...)