Coadjutor Archbishop Eamon Martin of Armagh has asked
“why shouldn’t a Catholic politician, or lawyer, or teacher, or person
of any profession for that matter, be able to confidently and
unapologetically express their sincerely held faith-based arguments in
the public square without fear of ridicule or being branded a bigot or
against freedom?”
He said, “Surely the mark of a
truly pluralist society is one which will allow people of all faiths
and none to express and act upon their conscientiously held views,
particularly on a matter as critical as the upholding of all human
life.”
Archbishop Martin, who will succeed Cardinal Seán Brady as Catholic Primate of All Ireland,
was delivering the annual St Oliver Plunkett address in west Belfast
last night as part of Féile an Phobail celebrations there.
Abortion legislation
He said “the recent debate surrounding the introduction of abortion legislation in the South has illustrated how much our message is becoming increasingly counter-cultural”.
He noted that “strong
arguments indeed” were presented by the church but that “some were on
the attack immediately pointing to the child abuse scandals and the
church’s abysmal record of protecting the lives of children in the past,
as if that means we should not attempt to speak up for the protection
of the most innocent human life in the present”.
Others
had pointed out “that the bishops being a group of aging celibate men
have no right to interfere with a woman’s right to choose what she wants
to do with her body”.
And there were the arguments, “made by several
senior politicians that, whilst bishops are entitled to their views,
they as politicians have to legislate for all the people, for the public
good”.
‘Faith outside the door ’
This “implied that somehow access to abortion is for the public good, but even more significantly, that politicians themselves, even if they be practising Catholics, must leave their faith outside the door when they are entering the legislative chamber”.
He felt “it
would hugely impoverish our faith if we were to compartmentalise it or
exclude it completely from our conversations and actions in the public
square. But I believe that it would also impoverish society if the
fundamental convictions of faith were not permitted to influence public
debate.”
Where the North was concerned, he said,
“We are only ‘tiptoeing’ towards a shared and reconciled future . . . We
all have a responsibility to help avoid a relapse into violence,
especially in the most deprived areas across our communities where
residents feel they have won little from the peace.”
More
generally, “We know that many people feel they can no longer trust our
message because they have been hurt and betrayed by their experience of
church in the past.”
He said “I do not think that
the dark cloud of abuse shall lift easily, but perhaps that is how it
should be – given that many of those whose trust was so cruelly betrayed
shall carry their hurt to their graves . . . The least we can do is
never to forget.”