Rite and Reason:In Ireland discussion of faith issues can appear impossible as the intellectual waters are muddied by irrational emotions, writes Dr Patrick Claffey
That the "sea of faith", in Arnold's celebrated term, has "retreated" in Ireland seems beyond doubt.
The accepted sociological criteria for describing a secularised society are largely to be found here - a decline of popular involvement with churches; in the scope and influence of religious institutions; and in the impact and popularity of religious beliefs.
All of these can be confirmed by simple observation and whatever about the emergence of postmodern spiritualities, institutional religion appears to have reached a low ebb.
What is often striking is the ferocity of secularising voices. Having had much contact with France, what I hear in both public and private discourse on faith and religious questions in Ireland has much in common with what I have heard there over 30 years.
In some circles, notably perhaps journalism and the academy, it is not simply an indifference to faith but an aggressive antipathy to expressions of the religious and often the visceral anticlericalism often encountered in France.
The new orthodoxy, a dogmatic secularism, claiming to be a product of the Enlightenment but sometimes seeming to owe little to reason, is marked by several of the worst aspects of the dogmatism its adherents claim to abhor! It brooks no contestation.
In fact, it often seems impossible to have any discussion on religious or faith issues so much are the intellectual waters muddied by irrational, sometimes infantile, emotions and unbridled prejudice. It is an anger that often appears almost Oedipal as we seek to shake ourselves free of a faith that has never grown up!
A factor in this is surely the almost complete absence of lay Catholic intellectuals with a willingness to reflect upon and speak out on faith issues.
In this, Ireland, with a few honourable exceptions, is quite different from most other European countries where there is often a robust lay Christian intellectual tradition with a willingness to pin its colours to the mast of faith while avoiding sycophancy in its relationship with the ecclesiastical institutions.
There may well be some justification, however, for the remark that in Ireland the role of the laity was to pray, pay and obey and this is something for which the Church is now paying the price.
The attitude to faith often appears to be based more on the antipathy towards an institution that came to be perceived as an overweening and sullenly resented presence at all levels of society, from the local to the national, the private and the public.
The image of the priest for many people of an older generation is surely well captured by Jack B Yeats' painting The Priest at the National Gallery, a hard man exuding a rough and rather gruff authority, surely not to be contested or trifled with.
This is probably not the only image we could find but it is one that is real for many people.
It can be argued that this image is the legacy that secularisation has set out to undo in Ireland and it is perhaps understandable, given the nature of the ecclesiastical edifice and its historical omnipresence, that the arguments have been robust.
But, of course, religious faith and its institutions have not gone away. They remain important in the lives of many people even if the locus of their influence has changed. The structured dialogue with faith bodies instituted by the Government is an acknowledgment of this fact.
However, it is also essential that the dialogue between religious institutions and society be broadened and deepened at all levels - social, political and academic. History, including our own, provides abundant proof of the dead ends faith can lead into.
It needs to be challenged and questioned at all times if it is to avoid becoming a closed sectarianism speaking only to itself.
A society devoid of faith and spirituality, however, is also in danger of losing touch with itself.
Here again history provides an abundance of examples of the ideological dead ends humanity has found itself in when it fails to recognise the transcendent as a factor in determining human values.
Jurgen Habermas speaks of "his interest in an approach which is respectful of religious traditions which distinguish themselves by their superior capacity in articulating our moral sensibilities".
This can cover a range of areas and issues but is surely a useful starting point for the dialogue.
They may hold no monopoly in this but neither can they be ignored.
Rev Dr Patrick Claffey is head of the Department of Mission Theology and Cultures at the Milltown Institute, Dublin