WORLD VIEW: SEVERAL DEVELOPMENTS suggest Ireland is undergoing a significant change in religious practices, beliefs and their public regulation, writes Paul Gilliepie. How will they evolve and what are the appropriate models to draw on concerning secularisation, toleration and religious rights?
A poll in the Irish Examineron March 20th reports that 84 per cent believe in God, but only 45 per cent attend a weekly church service, compared with 97 and 82 per cent in 1981, although the number of people who said they prayed remained over 80 per cent. Fifty-three per cent said they believed in hell; 41 per cent disagreed with the Catholic Church's opposition to abortion; half disagreed with the church on same-sex unions (31 per cent agreed); while 57 per cent disagreed with the church on divorce; and two-thirds rejected its views on contraception.
Just over half would pay €10 for the upkeep of their local church, while 45 per cent would not.
This week Minister for Education Mary Hanafin denied the Catholic Church would have any veto role in recruiting teachers of religion in new State-run primary schools, after a report in the Irish Independentsuggested this was one of that church's demands. Church spokesmen denied this, saying they want consultation rights and access rather than a veto.
Nonetheless Bishop Leo O'Reilly, chairman of the Education Commission of the Irish Bishops' Conference, last December welcomed Hanafin's announcement then that each of the faith groups represented in these schools would have a role. He said it was "essential that such provision be entrusted to qualified religious education teachers approved by the various faith traditions".
Hanafin told the Irish National Teachers Organisation of her plans to hold a major conference this summer on implications of the new social and religious diversity here for management of schools. Religious patrons, teachers, parents and managing bodies will consider the ethos of religious instruction, parental choice, inclusivity and enrolment policies. This approach is in keeping with the wider structured dialogue exercise being conducted by the Government with different churches, faith communities and non-confessional bodies.
Last year the Taoiseach located it in a European context of consultation with civil society; religion in Europe's heritage and the legitimate role of churches in the public sphere; and migrations that have brought new religions here and the need to harness them into national identity.
He then criticised those "who feel that the modern era is one with a shrinking role for religion, religious belief and religious identity. Our own experience over recent years demonstrates that this is not the case".
Ahern went on: "There is a form of aggressive secularism which would have the State and State institutions ignore the importance of this religious dimension. They argue that the State and public policy should become intolerant of religious belief and preference, and confine it, at best, to the purely private and personal, without rights or a role within the public domain. Such illiberal voices would diminish our democracy." He agreed that those with no religious belief must also be included in the dialogue. Recently the Humanist Association of Ireland met the Government and was pleased with the encounter, pointing out that non-religious are the State's largest minority.
Recent writers on the sociology and philosophy of religion such as Grace Davie, Alessandro Ferrara, José Casanova and Charles Taylor suggest there are three different types of secularisation at work in the world today (see the website www.resetdoc.org). The first charts the institutional separation between Christian churches and the liberal state, the classical but orthodox definition. The second describes the decline in religious participation. As Davie puts it, many practise a vicarious religion performed by an active minority on behalf of a still-approving majority who believe without any longer belonging.
A third definition is suggested by the philosopher Charles Taylor in his recent book, A Secular Age(Harvard 2007), according to which religious faith is no longer the default position in a society where once it was almost impossible not to believe in God. There are now many alternatives - a movement from obligation to optional consumption.
Ireland has gradually made the transition to "secularism 1" after the painful experience of church domination from the 1920s to the 1960s. The transition to "secularism 2" is now well under way - readily seen at funerals where Catholic rituals are preferred to non-religious ones even by those who no longer belong - or believe. "Secularism 3" is more typical of the United States than Europe, but is potentially a universal experience.
These writers emphasise the diversity of the European experience of church-state relations. Definitions of secularisation that bind it inherently to modernisation no longer hold up in the face of plentiful evidence for religious revival in Europe and elsewhere.
Ireland is often compared either to the French tradition of strict separation between church and state: the privatisation of religious belief so that newcomers can be assimilated to French citizenship by eliminating differences and separate group identities; or alternatively to the UK, where differences are accommodated rather than eradicated by a local pluralism.
In fact Ireland is better compared to the systems in Germany, Italy and Spain or to similarly changing models in Sweden, Austria or Portugal than only to secular France or multicultural Britain. Pluralism and tolerance are central norms.