For a just society

“A pluralist Ireland does not mean that the Church should retire from the sphere of public life, but that it should be present in a new and more radical manner”. Thus declared the Archbishop of Dublin, Primate of Ireland, Msgr. Diarmuid Martin in the address delivered a few days ago on the theme “Church-State relations” at the Mater Dei Institute of Education and Dcu Institute of Ethics.Reform through holiness. “When I was asked some months ago to give this Mater Dei/DCU Lecture on the Relationship between Church and State, I could not have imagined that I would be speaking just one week after the installation of a new government in Ireland”, the prelate said. The Archbishop tackled the Country’s major issues that include the ongoing economic crisis and the “weakness” of State management, and provided a snapshot of the Irish Church, notably in the light of the difficulties deriving from the scandal of abuse on minors. He explained that renewal in the Church “requires renewal of structures”, but renewal of structure alone “would be sterile”. “Renewal in the Church” can only be shaped from the perspective of the Christian life. The “great reformers of the Church” in history “were never primarily strategic analysts, but saints”, and “the instruments for the reform of the Church are those which are set out in the traditional program for Lent: prayer, penance and works of charity”. According to Msgr. Martin “reform of sinful structures will be attained only through holiness”.Church and State. Delving into the theme of the conference, the Archbishop remarked that although the Church “is in dialogue with the world around it”, the “Church cannot and must not take upon herself the political battle to bring about the most just society possible. She cannot and must not replace the State. Yet at the same time she cannot and must not remain on the sidelines in the fight for justice. She has to play her part through rational argument and she has to reawaken the spiritual energy without which justice, which always demands sacrifice, cannot prevail and prosper”. “A just society” – the prelate pointed out – “must be the achievement of politics, not of the Church. Yet the promotion of justice through efforts to bring about openness of mind and will to the demands of the common good is something which concerns the Church deeply”. “Ireland”, continues Msgr. Martin, “needs a younger generation of men and women who enter into politics” “with a clear vision of where they want society to go in the long run”. This requires “a new political culture and I believe that this is certainly one area where the Church, through its proclamation of the teaching of Jesus Christ can bring a special contribution”.The contribution of the Christian. According to the Archbishop of Dublin the contribution of the Christian to the creation of a better society “is to be found not simply in the extraordinary range of caring services that believers provide, notwithstanding the importance of that tradition of active care”. It is, rather, “about upholding and insisting on the recognition of the dignity of each human person”. However, he cautions, “the Christian in political life cannot deposit his or her commitment to the truth about the human person with the priest in the sacristy and embrace a different set of values as he goes into the public square. The committed Christian must always have the internal freedom to take up that which is culturally unpopular. At the same time the State would not be enhancing freedom if the believer were forced to leave aside his conviction to be allowed enter into the public square”.Educational pluralism. “When we speak of the problems and the challenges of the Church this does not mean that the Church is dead”, Msgr. Martin affirms. The Church is Dublin “may not be as numerically strong as it was, but it is far from being on the brink of collapse”. The Church “is not on the way to extinction. It is carrying out a vital role in society”. “Alongside its failures, the Church over the years has never been absent from the most alienated sectors of society”. Delving into the ongoing cultural context, the Archbishop underlined “the extraordinary work that our Catholic schools – run by religious or by lay teachers – have done for Irish education” and assured, “the Church has no right to claim for itself a role which goes beyond the desire of those parents who wish their children to have a Catholic education”. “While it is not unreasonable to assume that the desire for specifically Catholic education is less than in the past, this does not mean that Catholic education itself is a thing of the past”. As relates to pluralism in educational patronage, the prelate said he welcomes “very much the announcement of the Minister of Education and Skills about the establishment of a National Forum on School Patronage,” and added: “pluralism in educational provision is not an easy task to realise”. Simply “providing greater choice will not guarantee true pluralism”. Hence it is necessary that the State provide for “the fundamental rights of parents”.