Hiding one’s faith is a challenging reality for many committed Christians
A young friend took a day off work to come to Dublin for the Eucharistic Congress a few years ago. Though she got on well with everyone in the office, she told them she was going on a shopping trip for a wedding later that summer. As she strolled around the exhibition area in the RDS she suddenly found herself face-to-face with a co-worker from her company. After an initial moment of panic and embarrassment, it emerged her colleague had also told her friends she was gone to Dublin on a shopping trip for the day.
Why did neither woman want their colleagues to know they were at a faith event? It was not a problem with the congress per se: they told me they would find it just as difficult to mention their occasional pilgrimages to Medjugorje or Knock at the canteen table. It wouldn’t be worth the hassle, the sniggers, and the assumptions, they said.
Hiding one’s faith is a challenging reality for many committed Christians – and it’s not specific to Ireland. Britain’s Equality and Human Rights Commission has just published a report on religion in the workplace and mentions the pressure employees feel to “keep their religion hidden at work”. The report highlights this was “particularly felt by Christians”.
One male healthcare worker complained that he had been “gossiped about and even called crazy among the nurses” after telling a colleague “who pretended to simply want to converse with me, that as part my religion I sometimes fast. It made me feel intimidated, unsafe and persecuted”.
Christians have no monopoly on feeling aggrieved though. The document also highlights the bullying of children who opted out of religious assemblies at school and how a lesbian worker claimed evangelical Christians refused to work with her and told her she would “burn in Hell”.
The report, however, notes that the apparent sidelining of Christianity is a “prominent theme” with some employers and managers mentioning that “it did not seem acceptable to criticise other religions in the workplace whereas anyone could criticise Christianity”. Sound familiar?
Scorn and derision have long been the lot of Christians. But no one should fear intimidation and derision simply because they practice their faith. The people I’ve spoken to don’t seek to proselytise, but simply the freedom to mention their faith life without being ridiculed and judged.
Believers need to summon the courage to overcome the syndrome of embarrassment which ends up privatising faith completely. When people have the courage to talk about faith – as distinct to proselytising – it encourages others to do the same.
Christians cannot become thin-skinned and too easily offended, but neither should they have to endure ridicule in their workplaces on account of their faith.
Not every Easter egg is a good egg
“Children love Easter eggs. Except the ones who are forced to make them” – a stark slogan on an Australian campaign to combat child trafficking this Easter. Some 1.8 million children are working on cocoa farms in West Africa, enduring long hours in dangerous working conditions with no chance of receiving an education.
Campaigners are encouraging shoppers to buy Fairtrade products and have produced a ‘Good Egg Guide’ to promote ethical products. Is this something parish justice and peace groups might take up? Apparently the orders for next year’s chocolate eggs will be placed soon and shops could be lobbied to provide chocolate from farms with sound labour practices.
Raising concerns about Easter Eggs might sound killjoy, but with increased global connectedness comes the responsibility of being aware of how our consumer choices affect people in other parts of the world. More details at stopthetraffick.org
Oratory visit
Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council has opened the beautiful Oratory of the Sacred Heart for guided tours each Wednesday (11am-2pm) until May 13. The tiny oratory was built in the grounds of the Dominican Convent in Dun Laoghaire in 1919 to mark the end of the Great War. Many young men in the surrounding area lost their lives during the conflict.
The oratory, now encased in another building for protection, is unremarkable from the outside, but the inside walls and ceiling have been elaborately decorated with stunning Celtic-themed illustrations by Sr Concepta Lynch. Sr Concepta, who died in 1939, spent 16 years working on the intricate patterns, typical of the Celtic revival. Beautiful images of birds and beasts adorn the space which also includes Harry Clarke windows. Well worth a visit.