A VOCAL minority is jostling religion out of the public sphere in Ireland, a Columban priest complained yesterday when he addressed up to 10,000 pilgrims at Knock Shrine, Co Mayo.
To illustrate his point, Fr Seán McDonagh referred to the fact that a Sunday show about religion on RTÉ Radio One had been replaced by a business programme. Fr McDonagh added that not one of the Sunday newspapers nowadays contained "one serious article" about religion.
He continued that in modern Ireland the extraordinary contribution of religious and laypeople to the missions was being airbrushed from memory.
Fr McDonagh said that a recent Radio One Thomas Davis Lecture on Ireland in China contained not one mention of Irish missionary efforts, not just by Catholics but by Presbyterians from Northern Ireland and the Church of Ireland's Dublin University Mission to China.
There was a lack of graciousness about the work and extraordinary witness and commitment of thousands of men and women. "It was almost as if it were for nothing", Fr McDonagh continued.
"In Ireland today we must not allow a vocal minority to jostle religion out of the public sphere in this country. Church teaching on social justice, on human rights, on interpersonal relations, love, marriage and ecology has much to offer."
Some of the pilgrims who travelled to Knock Shrine yesterday for traditional ceremonies to mark August 15th, the Feast of the Assumption, walked there from east Mayo and neighbouring counties, in keeping with a long tradition.
The theme of the 2008 novena is The Creed that is dear to the Church and the keynote speaker at today's Masses (at 3pm and 8pm) will be the Bishop of Raphoe, Most Rev Philip Boyce; The Bishop of Elphin, Most Rev Christopher Jones, will deliver the Novena homily tomorrow while Sr Stanislaus Kennedy, of Focus Ireland, will preach on Monday.