PREGNANCY AGENCIES with particular religious views should not be obliged to make referrals to abortion clinics when there are other organisations “not bound by the same values”, willing to do so, a Government Minister has said.
Minister of State for Finance Dr Martin Mansergh also said adoption agencies should not be required to refer children for adoption to gay couples when this conflicted with their religious values.
He was however speaking about voluntary agencies and said that “State officials are required to implement the law, without reference to their own religious beliefs.
“To act otherwise would imply that religious beliefs should be allowed to take precedence over State impartiality and in effect to discriminate through a la carte implementation of the law.”
Dr Mansergh was addressing the congregation yesterday at Trinity College chapel in Dublin. He is one of a series of speakers during Lent and was talking about faith and politics and issues of conscience.
He said that while organised religion and churches were important repositories of moral values and teaching, they had “no monopoly in setting or teaching ethical standards”. Society “has to be capable of devising and living by ethical standards for modern circumstances . . . exist independently of religion.
“Where there is a disagreement between the values of the church and society, as expressed in the laws of the State, and where those whose first emphasis is on Christian values cannot prevail, the issue of providing for conscientious opt-outs is raised.
“My view is that voluntary agencies set up to respond to public needs in a way that reflects distinctive religious values should not be forced to act contrary to those values for example by being required to refer people to agencies that will help arrange abortions, or to give children . . . for adoption to gay couples.
“This is particularly so where there are other agencies, not bound by the same values, willing to act.”
While the providing for conscientious opt-outs is an issue in the voluntary sector, State officials had to implement the law. “Nobody is obliged to be or to stay a public official, if a conflict of beliefs occurs,” he said.
Dr Mansergh said he did not hold to the view that the only valid and authentic form of Republic “is a civic, secular one on the post-1789 French model. It is up to the people to decide what weight we wish to give to organised religion in our affairs.
“I would certainly hesitate to claim that an Islamic republic is not a real republic or deny that Israel, which often describes itself as a Jewish State, is one.”
He said there were “many possible gradations from a state or established church” and Ireland was “somewhere in between – a pluralist, even multicultural society, but still far removed from a secular decatholicised or dechristianised republic”.
Dr Mansergh, a historian, said the change in church-State relations that began in the 1970, while often justified by reference to pluralism and ecumenism, was largely provoked “within the broad Catholic community”.
