Religion not 'purely private matter'

Limerick: The Catholic Bishop of Limerick, Dr Donal Murray, has questioned the disparity between privately- held religious beliefs and publicly-held political stances.

In a pastoral letter, To Live as God's People: Reflections on the Visit of Pope John Paul to Limerick, he said "it sometimes seems that religious belief is tolerated provided it does not have any influence on the political stances that people adopt".

He asks: "How can it be that societies that pride themselves on their pluralism and tolerance tend to drive deeply-held beliefs out of public discourse into the private sphere?

"The fact that the sense of belonging seems greatly weakened both in the religious and the political sphere is not unrelated to the false division that is made between them . . .

" If we do not recognise that our attitude to political and social issues is the fruit of our deepest beliefs and convictions, we will begin to look on politics as a superficial game and on democracy as best served by an absence of convictions and as guided by no ultimate truths."

Reflecting on contemporary society, Dr Murray said: "We are faced not with state atheism but with the false and destructive notion that religion is a purely private matter. In fact our whole life is based on a vision of the dignity, meaning and destiny of human life."