Former Supreme Court judge, Catherine McGuinness, has been appointed to the Organisation of Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and will monitor of global anti-Christian discrimination as part of her duties.

Ireland has been handed the rotating chairmanship of the 56 member transnational body for 2012, and Minister for Foreign Affairs Eamon Gilmore will act as its Chairman in Office for the year. He appointed Mrs McGuinness to her post.

Mrs McGuinness will act as the Personal Representative on Combating Racism, Xenophobia and Discrimination, also focusing on Intolerance and Discrimination against Christians and Members of Other Religions.

The OSCE has been taking anti-Christian discrimination increasingly seriously.

Last September, the organisation held a conference in Rome to address the issue.

It heard from a number of prominent figures, including Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, head of the Moscow Patriarchate’s department for external church relations, who warned that Europe is currently experiencing “an atmosphere of intolerance in relation to Christians, as well as to representatives of other traditional religions”

Metropolitan Hilarion, one of the most influential figures in the Russian Orthodox Church. also said that Europe needs to “discuss openly the violation of the rights of Christians”.

The meeting, entitled “Preventing and Responding to Hate Incidents and Crimes against Christians”, was organised by Lithuania, which chaired the OSCE last year.

Metropolitan Hilarion said that, while European civilization “is a culture that has developed on a Christian foundation” it had “acquired a clearly expressed multicultural nature, having become a place of contact between peoples and religions from all over the world”.

But he denied that this situation threatened Europe’s Christian roots.

Instead, he warned that the danger lay in attempts “to use religious diversity as an excuse to exclude signs of Christian civilization from the public and political realities of the continent, as though this would make our continent friendlier towards non-Christians”.

He added: “I am convinced that society, which has renounced its spiritual heritage under the pretext of the radical separation of religious life from public life, becomes vulnerable to the spirit of enmity in relation to representatives of any religion.”

He cited the example of the Lautsi case, in which a Finnish woman attempted to force the Italian government to remove the crucifix from classrooms in Italian state schools.

He added: “People who ignore or infringe on the rights and legitimate interests of Christians are often guided by secular maximalism, that is, they proceed from the notion that religion is no more than the personal affair of the individual and does not have a social dimension.

“In recent years, the OSCE has come to realize that the dominant factor of radical secularism is as dangerous to religious freedom as religious extremism in all its manifestations.”

A meeting of the Parliamentary Assembly OSCE also issued a statement last year saying the the impact of labour law, equality law, laws on freedom of expression and assembly, and laws related to religious communities and right of conscientious objection must be reassessed “in view of discrimination and intolerance against Christians”.

As part of its Belgrade Declaration, it also called for a “public debate on intolerance and discrimination against Christians be initiated” and for the right of Christians to participate fully in public life to be ensured”.

The declaration reaffirmed “the inviolable right of the individual to profess his or her faith alone or in community, in private and in public life and to live freely according to the dictate of his or her conscience”.

It condemns the problem of intolerance and discrimination against Christians and members of other religions, “both in the eastern and western countries of the OSCE”.

The declaration also calls on the media “not to spread prejudices against Christians and to combat negative stereotyping”.

The declaration acknowledges “the positive contribution of Christians to social cohesion, cultural enrichment and value-orientated debate in our societies” and called on Christian churches “to continue their participation in public life contributing to the defence of the dignity of all human beings and to freedom and social cohesion”.

The OSCE is the world’s largest regional security organisation and it exists to offer a forum for political negotiations, conflict prevention, crisis management and post-conflict rehabilitation.

Its Parliamentary Assembly attempts to promote greater involvement in the OSCE by national parliaments in the participating States.

Its main task is to encourage inter-parliamentary dialogue with a view to strengthening democracy throughout the OSCE area, which includes many countries previously dominated by the Soviet Union.

It also aims, amongst other things, at supporting the strengthening and consolidation of democratic institutions in OSCE participating States.