CARDINAL SEÁN BRADY has urged Irish people to protest against plans to legislate for abortion.

In his Christmas message the head of the Catholic Church in Ireland said:

I hope that everyone who believes that the right to life is fundamental will make their voice heard in a reasonable, but forthright, way to their representatives.

No government has the right to remove that right from an innocent person.

Brady, who has been called to resign in the wake of the sex abuse scandal in the church, and accusations he failed to protect children, also said in his Christmas that he wanted relations with government to improve.

My hope is that the year ahead will see the relationship between faith and public life in our country move beyond the sometimes negative, exaggerated caricatures of the past.

The Cardinal also spoke of his disappointment at the failure to reform the tax and social welfare systems in order to help the less well off, while he also spoke of the hardships some people face:

Unprecedented financial pressures, and an ever-increasingly aggressive public culture, along with social, moral and spiritual fragmentation, are leading to lives being overwhelmed by stress, intolerable interior isolation and even quiet despair.

Read: Abortion ‘robo-calls’ begin again>

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