Cathal BarryBishop staunchly defends right to religious freedom
Catholics need to “dig deep” and have the confidence to speak up for their faith if they are to enrich the wider society, Bishop Brendan Leahy has said.
Dr Leahy, Bishop of Limerick, also defended the right of parents to have their children educated in the Faith.
In a staunch defence of the values of religious freedom, Bishop Leahy insisted that Catholics “need to be able to present their convictions in a reasoned manner”.
“We can be people of confidence in promoting our vision as we recall how the Christian valuation of the human being has been absorbed into liberal democracy. We need to build on that,” Bishop Leahy said.
The Dublin native acknowledged that people of religious faith regularly find themselves having to “swim against the tide” when faced with “dilemmas of conscience”.
However, he insisted people of religious conviction need to “dig deep in their spiritual resources and promote the ethical dimension that comes from the light of their religious traditions”.
He said parents must be “free to transmit onto their children, responsibly and without constraints, their heritage of faith, values and culture”.
“Religious education can offer much to the building of a strong and fraternal social fabric, in which young people can be prepared to assume their proper responsibilities in life, in a free society, and in a spirit of understanding and peace,” he said.
Bishop Leahy argued that in the contemporary society, when a vision of life inspired by faith can subtly but effectively be deemed not politically correct, “it is important for us to recognise the public role of religion and not be afraid to speak up”.
“We do so in terms of the dignity of the human person as endowed with spiritual antennae for truth and goodness. After all, every legal system leans on a certain vision of the human person. People of religious convictions need to contribute to informing that vision,” he said.