So-called ‘hate speech’ laws can be used to diminish the presence of religion in public life, according to the Catholic bishop of Down & Connor, Noel Traenor.

Responding to comments on the same topic from a  Vatican official, he told The Irish Catholic: “Where faith and religion are either eroded in the public square or banished from it, they can sometimes be banished by what is effectively hate speech, total misrepresentation of religion and faith.”

He said that the equation of religious language with intolerance is problematic.

“We must be attentive lest the limitations of freedom of speech are used in a way that would erode the proper and appropriate place of religious faith or the expression of a religious voice from the public square,”

Msgr Janusz Urbanczyk, permanent representative of the Holy See to the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) said he regretted “many preoccupying instances where private individuals and public officials or bodies seek to frighten or intimidate Christians, Jews, Muslims and members of other religions from expressing their faith-based opinion in the public sphere and hinder them from taking an active part in society”.  This intolerance, he said, is often advanced through accusations of “hatred” or “hate speech”, equating religious beliefs to hate and thus depicting religion as a problem.