Chai Brady
Politicians must listen to the “voice of Faith” in Ireland and create a functioning dialogue between Church and State, the Primate of All Ireland has said to the Irish Catholic.
As a new Government is set to be formed in the coming weeks Archbishop Eamon Martin [pictured left] said that the current model of Church-State dialogue is “tired” and “unused”.
In a message before the elections, the bishops put out a statement saying dialogue pathways with the State are “not functioning for the greater good of society and are in need of review”.
The bishops asked people to tackle politicians on the question: “Similar to Governments in other European countries and at EU level, should a specific Government minister with responsibility for dialogue with Churches and other faith communities be appointed as part of the next administration?”
Speaking to The Irish Catholic, Archbishop Martin expanded on the statement saying that “I think the particular model that is used in Ireland for Church-State dialogue is tired, I think it’s unused”.
“I think it hugely impoverishes the Church if we are not able to engage in that dialogue, and equally I think it hugely impoverishes democracy if the voice of faith is not heard,” the archbishop said.
“So, you will see that when we made this statement for the election this time around, we added that paragraph at the end – that we are here to help, not to threaten the State, but indeed the opposite, to support our politicians because they have accepted a very noble vocation to serve the people.
“But that means to listen to the voice of faith and there are many people in Ireland who have faith and who are willing to write that in the census, and say ‘I am a person of Faith’,” he added.