A Catholic student society at Trinity College Dublin has been warned they must stop organising prayer meetings [1], amid fears of suspension or funding cuts.
The Central Societies Committee has written to the Catholic Laurentian Society to inform them that they can no longer advertise or hold prayer meetings under the society’s banner, as the committee claims it is in breach of the society’s status as a “cultural” society.
The Irish Catholic reports that the society has held prayer meetings for years without issue, and that it is only now that a line has been drawn between worship and culture. A TCD student told the newspaper: “I think my first take on this is that it’s simply unjust.
“If it’s not equally applied, then this is discrimination. If it is evenly applied [to all religious societies], this is anti-religious discrimination. It’s either troubling anti-religious policy from a body that shouldn’t show discrimination to any group of students – their job is to promote college community. Or at best, it shows just a huge indifference and ignorance of what religious culture and Catholic culture specifically is,” the student said.