Elites “who want to reshape Irish society according to their lights with least possible reference to the people” are fundamentally threatening religious freedom in Ireland, according to prominent Senator, Martin Mansergh.

In an article in the Irish Catholic, Senator Mansergh said that such people are demanding that their unrepresentative views “supplant the democratic wishes of a majority of the people”. Secular humanism, he continued “is being promoted as the embodiment of neutrality and therefore should rightfully become the norm at a stroke,” he said.

Senator Mansergh, who is a member of the Church of Ireland, added that the majority faith of Catholicism now “places few constraints on personal freedom or choices, but equally no person or organisation should be forced by legislation or agencies of the State to act in a manner contrary to their conscientious religious beliefs”. Influential voices were attempting to undermine this equilibrium, he said.

Alluding to the row over the Catholic Church’s crisis pregnancy agency, Cura, he said: “Catholic pregnancy advisory agencies in Ireland have been threatened with a withdrawal of funding unless they are prepared to engage in abortion referral at a remove.” This situation was comparable to the situation in the UK where Church adoption agencies were being refused funding because of their stance over gay couples.

He also referred to calls for a removal of derogations from the EU equality directive which allow churches to protect their ethos in schools, hospitals and charities. Without the derogation, it would have been “impossible to maintain a religious ethos in any institution,” he said. “In short, religion is to be privatised and removed from the public sphere in a . . . post-Christian Ireland,” Senator Mansergh added.