Society can only be impoverished if faith excluded from public discourse: Bishop Eamon Martin

Archbishop Eamon Martin delivered a lecture at the University of East Anglia in Norwich yesterday evening on the theme ‘The Church in the Public Sphere – a perspective from Ireland’. Here is an extended extract from his speech.

I’ve been asked to speak about The Church in the Public Sphere, and I’ve assumed that, in inviting me, you had in mind the Catholic Church.

I am very conscious, however, that whilst each of us has a distinctive contribution to make, a lot of what I have to say here is applicable to other churches and faiths, and to people of goodwill everywhere.