As the Celtic Tiger lopes majestically through the land, the uneasy question occurs to us: "What is all this for?" We ask what we want our country to be. Is this the only ideal we put before ourselves for our society - that it should be rich? When the inadequacy of that answer begins to dawn, then perhaps we are ready to hear again that we do not live on bread alone.

I am always a little puzzled when I see an advertisement for a course which is called Commercial French or Commercial German. I can't help wondering whether your average French industrialist is likely to be impressed by the fact that you know the French for Gross National Product even though you may know nothing of French history or wine or literature.

That may be unfair but it illustrates the point that if we operate on the basis that what one believes, what makes one tick - one's deepest feelings - are all private matters, then we could perhaps conduct public life in Commercial French or Commercial English. Worse still, maybe we already do!

A great deal of life seems to proceed on the assumption that one may safely ignore anything that may lie beneath the visible surface of things. Pope John Paul has said: "Nowadays there is a tendency to claim that agnosticism and sceptical relativism are the philosophy and the basic attitude which correspond to democratic forms of political life. Those who are convinced that they know the truth and firmly adhere to it are considered unreliable from a democratic point of view, since they do not accept that truth is determined by the majority."

Of course European history can scarcely allow us to forget the way in which the pursuit of deep convictions and loyalties can lead to conflict which destroys peace and social justice. But the answer to false and exaggerated convictions can only lie in the truth.

It cannot be found in pretending that that these convictions do not exist. If only the visible, functional aspect of ourselves is relevant to the public arena, then there is no need to seek further to find why our participation in the political process is less than wholehearted.

It is no accident that modern democracies, and the European Union itself, seem to be marked by a profound disillusionment with the political process. This is at least partly because the whole context risks seeming to tell people: "Do not enter here with your whole self. Your religious views must be kept to yourself; they are a private matter. Your moral views must not intrude into political life, they are divisive."

At the same time there is a certain rejoicing in the debunking of politicians and heroes, churches and traditions, moral values and past achievements. One can, of course, only welcome the honesty which refuses to allow things be swept beneath the carpet. But there is a danger that we may find ourselves with no heritage to be proud of and no foundation on which to stand.

That would not only be dangerous, it would be an illusion. It might suggest that we are willing to delude ourselves that we are somehow better, more reliable, more honest, more enlightened, more virtuous than those who went before us.

It might also suggest that we think ourselves capable of building a civilisation from scratch, that we have nothing to learn from our predecessors, or that we learn only from their failures but not from their achievements.

And so the contemporary atmosphere may be perceived as saying: "Your loyalty to your nation, culture and beliefs is outdated and naive. You have no past to be proud of; you are on your own."

If we fail to think more deeply we risk building a society which is made up, not of living people, but of abstractions, with a life which is lived in the shallows by people without roots and without depth. We could end up with a society which forgets that its own foundations lie in a reverence for the dignity of the human person, in the kind of questions to which faith and culture respond, each in its own way.

What is then to stop us arriving at a society which believes only that what is profitable is good, what is legal is moral, what is bigger is better? A life based on such principles would necessarily be disillusioning.

Everybody seems to recognise that tolerance and pluralism are necessary. But pluralism cannot be based on the idea that the views and attitudes which are to be respected are mere matters of opinion which have no reference to the life of society. If you think my beliefs are just my idiosyncratic opinions and that I should not let them influence my vision of society, then you are not respecting them, because you are not recognising the significance which they have for me.

Each area of human understanding - scientific, historical, literary, sociological, philosophical or theological - reflects and advances our appreciation of what it means to be human; each expresses in its own way what it means to be human. "Expressing what it means to be human" might not be a bad description of the role and meaning of culture!

But the underlying fear in contemporary society is the fear of meaninglessness. We see a world in which people suffer and die in poverty and we do not want to send to ask for whom the bell tolls.

We see the vast incomprehensibility of the universe and we have not the courage to ask whether we can still believe in a God who cares about puny and short-lived beings on this out-of-the-way planet in an undistinguished galaxy. We are afraid of chaos.

If there is no meaning, then the search for truth is a mere illusion. The whole enterprise of culture becomes a nonsense. An oasis of meaning in an absurd universe would itself be absurd.

At the same time, the very anguish which that evokes speaks of a commitment to the truth, a refusal to take refuge in evasions, which is closer than it might at first seem to the search for a truth which is permanently beyond our grasp.

Faith can be an ally of the cultural enterprise. It is a vision of meaning, of completeness, an assurance that there is an objective truth towards which the spirit can orient itself. It is an ally, not an alternative.

The Gospel does not terminate or replace the cultural quest because the meaning which is found in Christian faith is never fully grasped. There is interplay between poetic word and the Gospel message precisely because both are mysterious.

That is why it is equally true that culture can enrich faith. Faith can become empty if it is not stretched. The words of faith can lose their ability to touch the deepest chords. A few decades ago words like "sanctifying grace", "incarnation", "heaven", had a resonance that they seem to have lost.

We believers need to renew the language of faith through its dialogue with culture, so that truths of the Gospel are spoken in a language that is nourished by, that illuminates and that challenges the culture in which it is spoken.

The process by which words become emptied of their meaning, by which "hallowed phrases" become "hollowed phrases", is not confined to the religious sphere. Just recently a member of the judiciary declared, as I understand it, that an abortion could be appropriately described as "medical treatment". Alas, poor Hippocrates!

The challenge that faces us is to hear the questions that are being expressed in contemporary culture. We who are believers need to hear those questions, not only from the outside but within ourselves.

We need also to help to pose the questions which our culture finds uncomfortable - questions about death, moral issues, the possibility of justice for the living, and even for the dead. That is the task and promise of the dialogue between faith and culture.

Dr Donal Murray is the Catholic Bishop of Limerick. He delivered the above address at the recent opening of the Irish Centre for Faith and Culture in Maynooth.