ONE of the more pleasing developments in the slow movement towards a more inclusive society has been the increasing confidence of religious minorities, particularly the Church of Ireland.

This confidence is evident in many ways, but particularly in the growing prominence in public affairs of members of that church and in contexts where few people remark or seem aware of their religious affiliation. Not many people now, for instance, would be conscious of the religious background of Ivan Yates, Trevor Sargent, Catherine McGuinness or Jack Boothman, in the way a previous generation would have been aware of the background of Erskine Childers or Douglas Hyde.

What is remarkable now is how unremarkable that has become.

This evolution has been helped enormously by the involvement of those above named Church of Ireland members in the State's affairs, and by churchmen such as the former Dean of St Patrick's Cathedral, Victor Griffin, for instance, whose sons serve in the security forces.

All took their place as of right and in so doing they have helped to over come the alienation of a previous generation of their co-religionists in a rigidly Catholic state, where to be Protestant was to suffer chronic nostalgia, while all about you the paint peeled.

"The Church of Ireland of my youth (1930s and `40s) was still a church which largely kept its head behind the parapets", remarked the Archbishop of Dublin, the Most Rev Walton Empey, at the pre-Synod service on May 6th. But all is different now, he suggests. He spoke of "a huge sea change in the attitude to the State" of members of his church. "Those of us who live in the State love our country, warts and all, and that point needs stressing again and again", he continued.

"We have found a renewed confidence in the past 25 years", continued Archbishop Empey, "we speak out when necessary on issues of the day and what is more we are listened to ... At every level of Irish society members of the Church of Ireland are playing their part right up to local council representation and the Dail."

REFERRING to ecumenical matters, the Archbishop, talked of the "vast change that has taken place in relations between the churches. "From being considered as nothing other than heretics by the Roman Catholic Church in earlier days, we are now in a much happier situation", he said.

Maybe it is time the Catholic Hierarchy apologised for that. More importantly, they might consider changing their whole approach to mixed marriage.

No single provision has played a more drastic part in the continuing minority depopulation of this State than this one whereby the Catholic partner has to promise verbally to raise any children as Catholics.

In their presentation to the Forum for Peace and Reconciliation "Factors affecting population decline in minority religious communities in the Republic of Ireland Prof J.J. Sexton, of the ESRI, and Mr Richard O'Leary, of Oxford University, stated. "This report reveals that mixed marriages have had a profound effect on the numbers of births and birth rates associated with the minority religious communities, especially in more recent decades."

The reason for the effect being greater lately is because of the higher incidence of mixed marriages in recent times, to the detriment of the minority groupings.

"Mixed marriages are therefore very relevant to numerical loss in so far as the minority religious communities are concerned, as the children of these marriages are disproportionately brought up as Catholics", they concluded.

This sort of spiritual imperialism was not always the practice of the Catholic Church. Prior to the Ne Temere decree of 1908 where by both partners to a mixed marriage had to give a written undertaking to raise their children as Catholics the custom was that boys would be raised in their father's religion and girls in their mother's.

If that custom were to be revived now the numbers of minority children in mixed marriages in the Republic would rise automatically by 150 per cent, or from 4,000 to about 10,000, according to 1991 figures.

IN 1970, the Roman Catholic Church changed its ruling slightly on the issue, with Mafrimonia Mixta. Under this, the Protestant partner was no longer required to promise to raise the children as Catholics. However, the Catholic partner was still required to do so. In 1983, the Irish Episcopal Conference decreed that an oral promise by the Catholic partner "to have all the children of our marriage baptised and brought up in the Catholic Church" would suffice.

The Catholic Church also regards joint baptisms or two baptisms as wrong, as it does a double marriage rite. A Protestant minister may attend a marriage, but it must be conducted by a priest. And, if the Protestant partner becomes recalcitrant about all of this, then, according to Preparing for a Mixed Marriage, published by the Catholic Hierarchy in 1983 and which discourages mixed marriages, the Catholic partner is advised to "ask yourself whether you are yet ready to share in a Christian (sic) marriage".

Is it not time the Catholic Church reconsidered its stance on this issue? After all, what we are dealing with is a Catholic Church law which did not exist before 1908.