Religious freedom and freedom of conscience is under growing pressure, both in Ireland and around Europe, a conference in the Pontifical Irish College in Rome heard yesterday.

Iona Institute director, David Quinn told the conference, which was attended by President Mary McAleese, that the warnings of Pope Benedict about aggressive secularism needed to be heard.

His talk was chaired by the Secretary-General to the Department of the Government, Dermot McCarthy.

The conference, entitled Religious Freedom East and West, was held in the memory of Father Ragheed Ganni, who was murdered in Iraq four years ago, and who had studied at the Irish College.

Pointing to a number of examples, he said that legislative attempts to eliminate various forms of ‘discrimination’ have led to an increased threat to religious freedom.

He cited the case of Dr Phil Boyle, who offers an infertility treatment in a clinic in Galway.

In accordance with his Catholic/Christian beliefs he offers this treatment only to married couples.

Mr Quinn said: “This is what landed him in trouble. His practice was contacted by a couple who are living together asking whether he would take them on as patients. He was told he would not because they were unmarried.

“Annoyed, they filed a complaint against him with the Fitness to Practice Committee of the Irish Medical Council on the grounds that the doctor had discriminated against them due to their marital status.”

The Committee heard the complaint, which could have led to Dr Boyle being struck off the medical register.

In the end he was acquitted, but only on a technicality. Had he not been, Mr Quinn said, there was “every likelihood that he would have been found guilty of professional misconduct”.

“In such an eventuality the message of the Irish Medical Council would have been that Catholic doctors who take their faith seriously are not welcome to work in the field of infertility treatment,” he added.

He also referred to the fact that the guidelines of the Irish Pharmacists’ Union appear to require pharmacists, irrespective of their religious beliefs, to stock the Morning-After-Pill (MAP), which can act as an abortifacient.

Mr Quinn told the conference: “The code for pharmacists indicates that pharmacists must stock whatever is lawfully available in the State and they have no right to refuse to sell a customer a product on conscience grounds.

“This obviously puts pharmacists who do not wish to sell a product that can act as an abortifacient in a very difficult position and ultimately would make it very hard for such pharmacists to work in their chosen field.”

He also pointed to a motion which was put before the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) last year, which attempted to limit the freedom of conscience of medical professionals.

The proposal, put down by UK Labour politician Christine McCafferty, suggested that no medical institution could refuse to perform an abortion on the grounds that a medical institution, not being a person, doesn’t have a conscience. The proposal also

“The implications of such a proposal for Catholic and other religious hospitals are crystal-clear. Such a hospital would not be permitted to abide by its ethos,” Mr Quinn said.

Behind these examples, he said, lay an interpretation of Church/State separation which looked for “the separation of religion from society, or at least from public life”.

He said: “It is not simply that the law of the land is allowed to bear no trace of Christian or religious influence, it goes even further. Churches and religious communities, and by extension all those who belong to them, have no right to even try and influence the laws of the lands in which they live, and that any attempt to do so is illegitimate and somehow undemocratic.

“This attitude of aggressive secularism – as the Pope and others have called it – is reaching out from the political sphere into the public square in general and down to the level of the individual religious believer.”