Religious freedom in Ireland "is being fundamentally challenged" by "elites who want to reshape Irish society according to their lights with least possible reference to the people", Senator Martin Mansergh has said.
"The demand is that unrepresentative views be entitled to supplant the democratic wishes of a majority of the people. Secular humanism, instead of being one minority view among others, is being promoted as the embodiment of neutrality and therefore should rightfully become the norm at a stroke," he said.
In an article for the Irish Catholic newspaper, Mr Mansergh (a member of the Church of Ireland) noted that in today's Ireland the majority faith of Catholicism "places few constraints on personal freedom or choices, but equally no person or organisation should be forced by legislation or agencies of the State to act in a manner contrary to their conscientious religious beliefs. Today there are influential voices who want to overthrow that equilibrium."
Alluding to the Cura row, he said: "Catholic pregnancy advisory agencies in Ireland have been threatened with a withdrawal of funding unless they are prepared to engage in abortion referral at a remove."
He compared it to the situation in Britain where Catholic adoption agencies must accept same-sex couples as suitable parents or close through loss of state funding.
Other examples in Ireland he gave included calls for the ending of the Angelus on RTÉ and prayers in the Oireachtas, as these might offend Jews, Muslims, and others, as well as calls for a removal of derogations from the EU equality directive which allow churches to protect their ethos in schools, hospitals and charities. Without the derogation, it would have been "impossible to maintain a religious ethos in any institution," he said.
"In short, religion is to be privatised and removed from the public sphere in a . . . post-Christian Ireland," he said.