The National Director of Aid to the Church in Need Ireland Mr Harry Casey has said that people of faith “have been almost bullied into silence” and suffer a form of persecution for their faith. Speaking at the launch of ACN’s Religious Freedom in the World Report 2025 in Dublin Mr Casey said “That in Ireland, polite persecution is persecution almost, you know, a smile on your face and at the same time the dagger has been pushed in. And that’s a phrase worth remembering, you know, you’re talking to somebody or you’re reading something but there’s an undercurrent there that’s quite hostile but it’s done in a very subtle way. And it’s important that we reclaim our confidence and that we respect everybody of faith irrespective of what denomination they come from.”
ACN’s head of public affairs, Micheal Kelly added: “I think there’s a need for everyone, public representatives, policy makers, journalists, to question their own assumptions. I think very often there can be battles going on in this country against some perception of the Catholic Church from the 1950s, rather than dealing with the reality today.” He warned of groupthink in the media where many don’t have faith and don’t know anyone who does and added: “I’d like to see a situation whereby more respect is given to the voice of faith in public dialogue. I mean, alongside the voice of the trade union movement, alongside the voice of industry, alongside the voice of employers. Article 17 of the Lisbon Treaty was supposed to be part of a way of institutionalising that in European law. I can’t speak about other countries, but I think it is yet to find, it is yet to find the space that is necessary here.”
