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A CORK CITY councillor will tonight table a motion calling for an end to the practice of saying a prayer at the beginning of council meetings.
The motion, which also calls for the removal of a crucifix from the Council chamber, will be brought forward by Pádraig Rice, a Social Democrats councillor in the Cork City South Central constituency.
Speaking to The Journal ahead of tonight’s meeting, Rice said that while there is a “time and a place for religious worship, I don’t think it is at Cork City Council meetings”.
“This is a democracy, not a theocracy,” he added, and noted that voters who elected councillors “come from all faiths and none”.
He said it is “deeply inappropriate to open our meetings with a prayer” and that the practice should be stopped.
I have a motion at tonight’s Cork City Council meeting that calls for a separation of Church and State, including ending the practice of opening Council meetings with a prayer.
— Pádraig Rice (@PadraigRice) July 8, 2024
There is a time and place for religious worship, but I don’t think it is at Cork City Council…
And while Rice added that “symbols are important”, he said the crucifix in the Council chamber should be removed as “having symbols of one faith and none from all the others sends out a signal”.
“Our City should be about inclusion and not exclusion,” said Rice, “we need to create a modern, pluralist republic of equals with a clear separation of church and state.”
“With the prayer and the crucifix, it still feels like 1930s Ireland in there,” added Rice of the Council Chamber.
Rice also said that feels a “sense of duty to pursue a modernisation agenda” and that this is “just one part of that”.
The motion also calls for Cork City Council to extend an invitation to the leaders of all faiths in Cork City whenever religious leaders are invited to Council meetings.
Rice told The Journal that he is uncertain how much support his motion will receive.
However, Ken O’Flynn, a councillor in the Cork City North-East constituency, said that he will “stand firm against these misguided attempts to erase our traditions”.
O’Flynn added that Rice’s motion “demonstrates a concerning disregard for the cultural and historical significance of Christianity in our society”.
O’Flynn, who recently joined Independent Ireland, said the motion was “divisive but also a disservice to the majority of our citizens who hold these values dear”.
He added that the “argument of the separation of Church and State has long been settled”.
“It is clear that the Church does not interfere with the day-to-day operations of Cork City Council, I don’t see the Papal Nuncio sitting in the Chief Executive’s office of City Hall, nor are our motions going for approval or ratification by the Roman Holy See.”
O’Flynn labelled it a “sensationalist proposal” that “serves no practical purpose and only distracts from the real issues affecting our city day-to-day”.
O’Flynn “urged” Rice to “focus on meaningful initiatives that address the needs of our citizens” and added that “respect for diversity should not come at the expense of erasing our cultural heritage and values”.
“We should be working together to address the pressing issues that truly impact the lives of our citizens and move forward in a spirit of unity and respect for our shared history,” said O’Flynn.
However, Rice told The Journal there are “multiple issues to work on simultaneously” and pointed to housing as a “huge priority”.
Rice noted that he has two questions down on housing for tonight’s meeting and added that he spoke last week on issues with public transport in the city and has lodged representations with the Council on housing, parks, playgrounds and footpaths.
“However, as a new councillor, the prayer and the iconography in the council chamber really struck me in the first meetings as being entirely inappropriate for a civic body,” said Rice.
“For that reason, I decided to put this motion down.”
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Why not also cancel Christmas, at the end of the day its also a Christian celebration, not to hurt anyone feelings. The west is slowly coming to an end
@Tony G: oh grow up.
@Tony G: Well there have been attempts recently by RTE and others to describe it as the holiday season.
@Tony G: We can just change the name of it again or go back to Saturnelia which it was changed from
@Tony G: no problem with getting rid of christmas it’s just a consumption orgy.
@Tony G: it’s actually a pagan celebration that xtians hijacked, like many of their myths and stories.
@Ian: Is that your best shot? Pathetic.
@Patrick Westman: it is a holiday season
@Tony G: and Christmas is all about the birth of Jesus to most not sales ,gifts ,food ,shopping etc etc ?!
@Ian: Oh WAKE UP …
100% correct no place for one sided iconography
@Michael James Brennan:
“It is very true what you say about the higher races of men, when high enough, replacing & clearing off the lower races. In 500 years how the Anglo-Saxon race will have spread & exterminated whole nations; & in consequence how much the Human race, viewed as a unit, will have risen in rank.” Darwin
Are any of you secularists from the ‘Age of Reason’ willing to accept that humanity is not made up of favoured and less favoured ‘races’ (natural selection) to remove that prejudice from schools and society?
Prejudiced people will still be prejudiced, but they cannot appeal to the redneck Victorian conviction to support that prejudice.
@Michael James Brennan: Including flags.
@Gerald Kelleher: You are once again misrepresenting natural selection because you refuse to understand it.
@Gerald Kelleher: Yes. Darwin was wrong about a great deal of things. He was a starting point not and be all and end all like a religious text.
Do you agree with death for eating shellfish? Should a group of kids mocking a bald man (prophet Elisha) be eaten by bears? How about death for eating shellfish or being lgbt? What about selling your daughter into slavery? What about death for wearing mix fabric clothing?
@D: A year before Darwin’s Origin of Species emerged, Wallace used the neighbouring islands of Ireland and Britain to propose the same version Darwin adopted and modified.
“I thought of his clear exposition of “the positive checks to increase”–disease, accidents, war, and famine–which keep down the population of savage races to so much lower an average than that of civilized peoples. It then occurred to me that these causes or their equivalents are continually acting in the case of animals also, because in every generation the inferior would inevitably be killed off and the superior would remain–that is, the fittest would survive.The more I thought over it the more I became convinced that I had at length found the long-sought-for law of nature that solved the Origin of Species.”
@Michael James Brennan: in all our schools we are promoting inclusion. It dies not mean removing symbols or prayers thereby offending the people they represent. It means adding symbols using non sectarian language and understanding and tolerating differences. Perhaps the County Councils need to ask the actual teachers of our children or the minister for education for guidance on adopting a modern approach. Stop this exclusionary negativity.
@Pad: Ireland is a SECULAR country NOT a catholic country .
@Gerald Kelleher: I agree.
Darwin, Wallace, and Galileo are all responsible for Hitler’s actions. Those were the real nazis.
@Michael James Brennan: Ireland is a 78% Catholic Country according to the 2016 Census.
The prayer at the start is a bit weird but having a cross in the room isn’t harming anyone. If others feel unrepresented let them bring in some symbol or other.
@ecrowley ecrowley: unrepresented?? No there no place for any of this stuff in a secular society where religious freedoms are guaranteed. Is that not enough?
@Mic JHintl: I have no idea the ethnic or religious background of all the councillors in the room. I’m sure some are catholic, let them have a crucifix. If some are Muslim let them have the Qur’an or whatever.
@Mic JHintl:
Put up a picture of Darwin instead to represent this modernist agenda.
“Thus, the reckless, degraded, and often vicious members of society tend to increase at a quicker rate than the provident and generally virtuous members. The careless, squalid, unaspiring Irishman, living in a pig sty and superstition multiplies like rabbits” Darwin
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Descent_of_Man_(Darwin)/Chapter_V
Who is going to free people from that subculture?
@Gerald Kelleher: The beauty of science is that it doesn’t deify or sanctify people nor is afraid to learn new things or develop our understanding of things. Darwin was a racist, so what? He’s not a God we can’t criticise nor is questioning his work forbidden as blasphemy.
@Don’t Forget:
That is the trap society finds itself in when it is inside a subculture. In Galileo’s era, that subculture existed but was outside mainstream research.
Wallace’s version ( comment above) was too aggressive as civilised/savage ‘races’ while using famine Ireland and Industrial England as a template, so Darwin’s version was adopted as neighbouring Galapagos islands while still retaining favoured and less favoured human ‘races’.
‘On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life’ Darwin, 1859
I am talking to you as an adult, not a victim of Victorian prejudice. It takes an individual effort to escape Royal Society modelling and that the Irish were a model of a savage ‘race’ among humanity.
@Gerald Kelleher: You said a whole lot of words there that have no relevancy or meaning.
@Mic JHintl:
Religious freedoms guaranteed,and yet you want the freedom of having a crucifix,and a few prayers taken away.
Catholicism,and Christianity is the main religion in our country, why should we bow to the ones who are offended by our religion,and customs.
Try telling that to Hindus ,or islamists in their own country and see what happens.
This jumped up newly elected so and so will find himself out if a job with that preaching attitude.
@ecrowley ecrowley: So eventually you’ll have a room full of religious iconography from bibles, qurans, statues, scrolls, rams heads and dream catchers. Yeah, that’ll definitely work.
@FFS This: I couldn’t tell you how many religions make up the council. I certainly wouldn’t deprive a rasta from sparking up a joint, if he felt it was in accordance with his beliefs.
@Gerald Kelleher: why would Darwin represent me and even if he did why would I impose that on anyone. Lots of presuppositions in there Gerald which actually reveal more than you might think.
@ecrowley ecrowley: the problem you haven’t foreseen is your altruistic endeavor to be inclusive of all religions including the really insidious ones is that wall space will have to be expanded to get all this rubbish on there. The other issue is it will become a full time maintenance of all the little token trinkets.
@Mic JHintl: I seriously doubt the aim would be fill the room with iconography. How many religions are going to be represented, 2 maybe 3. And think about all the empty space in the room. The atheists can lay claim to all of that.
Perhaps this Councillor would also ask that the Bible be removed from the Courtroom, what a petty notice grabbing request. Traditional acts should be retained and the fact that there is a Crucifix on the wall is no different than having the Joiners name on the Court furniture.
@vxQ6cYzh: unless the joiners name was Joseph.
@vxQ6cYzh: yes indeed.
Let’s never progress but instead keep traditional acts.
Can we throw that old woman in the river to see if she’s a witch?
@Alan: love it
@vxQ6cYzh: always wondered do atheists swear on the bible in court ?
@vxQ6cYzh: the Bible should be removed from courtroom. It’s an immoral book full of rape, murder, incest, genocide and it advocates all of the above. It’s certainly not a book of morality.
@Rory Burns: you get a choice to swear on the bible or not. They have a stack of other religious books for those of other faiths too, one of which I saw used. I wouldn’t swear on the bible personally but you have a choice not to.
@Ciaran Foster: You would probably end up cursed by her, and swearing on the Bible that you didn’t do it and blame the Joseph the Joiner
The councillor should be doing the job he was elected for, there must be more important and urgent issues that needs attention than worrying about a cross on the wall.
@silvery moon: If prayers are important to them, they should say them in their own time. They should not be paid to waste time in these meaningless rituals.
Good. We are supposed to be Republic, not a Catholic dictatorship.
That will make a huge difference I’m sure !!.Hope there’s no old faded photos of Collins,Dev or other icons knocking about that might upset their sensitivities.
@Patrick Westman: Dev who bent the knee to the Cardinal? More loyal to Rome than Ireland that fella.
Let’s go one better and remove all crosses from churches and mountain tops including Bray Head, so that no one is offended!
@Brian Hunt: nobody talking about anyone being offended bar yerself.
@Brian Hunt: Let’s remove get rid of churches, mosques and synagogues altogether. If anyone wants to practice a religion, do it at home.
@brendan hackett:
Do that, and all that will remain will be the same thing the Nazis tried when they saw human strength as a weakness for their Victorian natural selection imperatives.
“Under proper guidance, in the course of the final solution, the Jews are to be allocated for appropriate labour in the East. Able-bodied Jews, separated according to sex, will be taken in large work columns to these areas for work on roads, in the course of which action doubtless a large portion will be eliminated by natural causes. The possible final remnant will, since it will undoubtedly consist of the most resistant portion, have to be treated accordingly because it is the product of natural selection and would if released, act as the seed of a new Jewish revival” Holocaust Planning, 1942
Too cowardly to go near Muslims, but anything Christian is fair game. Still if a crucifix on a wall and a few prayers (that you don’t have to say), offends all you folks, imagine a few years down the line when this country is Islamic, then you’ll be wishing for that crucifix back and the freedom to say those few Christian prayers.
@Brian Hunt: start with the Popes Cross in the Phoenix Park, it’s a blight on the landscape
Staff can leave their hijab at the door too.
I’ve no problem with removing the cross as not religious in anyway. I would have a problem if it’s because it may be seen as offensive to other new resident/citizens. We don’t need to eradicate or erode our own traditions and beliefs under the guise of inclusivity…overly sensitive nonsense.
@Keith Greene: ‘….. our own traditions….’? We are obviously speaking for yourself.
@Sean O’Dhubhghaill: ya nob..it’s traditionally a catholic country…
@Keith Greene: for most of the past 1600 years, yeah. People were here long before that though. Thankfully it’s dying out now. Just a phase.
@Sean O’Dhubhghaill: The Catholic faith is more of an Irish tradition than the Irish language. Take any of the censuses and more people claim to be RCs than speak Irish.
Down with this sort of thing
@sean toner: is there anything to be said for another mass!
Council chamber is a place of business. There should be no religious prayers or symbols of any description.
I thinks that’s fair enough.
Is Christianity not part of our heritage? If we can drop our religion so easily why not drop the Irish language? After all English is the mother language tongue of the majority of the native Irish population.
@Vincent Alexander: Christianity, yes. But many Christian denominations would not have public displays of the crucifix as part of their tradition.
@Sean O’Dhubhghaill: The Irish were Roman Catholic hence the cross.
O’Flynn comes across as a complete th.ck. if the prayers are being said for his enlightenment then who could object to that. ‘Erase our traditions’…all they want to do is drop an unnecessary and inappropriate prayer.
If jaaus can come down off the cross he can stay. Otherwise in the bin please
@S:
Here, put this picture up to remind commenters that in a few thousand years, they might evolve into conservative Brexiteers rather than just above black complexion Africans in an evolutionary narrative.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fa/Scientific_racism_irish.jpg
The original Christian symbols were the fish and Chi Rho, not the cross.
Younger Irish people are encountering an old world passing away, not Christ and Christianity, but the excesses of those who try to represent spirituality as moral laws and science as empirical laws of nature.
For the moment, young people handed themselves over to secularists and their manifesto to extinguish the perceptive abilities, which make individuals creative and productive because that is the divine state if humanity.
There’s a time and a place for religious worship: the Middle Ages
Rice also said that he feels a “sense of duty to pursue a modernisation agenda”
He means the Enlightenment agenda, which tried to exclude the perceptive abilities from society and reduce them to the ‘Age of Reason’.
The Americans imported this subculture from England in the 18th century, so tell me how their societies are doing with this subculture?.
Denominational Christianity is useless as it, too, is a promoter of an academic/political superstructure based on laws of nature (academics) and civil laws (politicians).
Democracy existed before the ‘Age of Reason’ but is no better for it.
“Nature and Nature’s laws lay hid in night:
God said, Let Newton be! and all was light.
Alexander Pope
Isaac wrote no laws, he did write rules of reasoning as a manifesto for a subculture.
@Gerald Kelleher: which god said let Newton be? Also what was said in relation to Galileo?
@Mic
Galileo died long before the scientific method subculture emerged through clockwork solar system modelling and a misadventure with timekeeping. He, among others, did warn against people who proceed in a specific way that Newton wrote as ‘rules’ (not laws).
“I know; such men do not deduce their conclusion from its premises or establish it by reason, but they accommodate (I should have said discommode and distort) the premises and reasons to a conclusion which for them is already established and nailed down. No good can come of dealing with such people, especially to the extent that their company may be not only unpleasant but dangerous.” Galileo
I speak to commenters as reasonable adults and not school boys or icon worshipers. A society within a subculture is dangerous.
@Mic JHintl: ah don’t be getting him started,it’s only Monday
@Gerald Kelleher: I’m more concerned with the treatment of Galileo by that lovely cult in Rome. It’s still hiding the truth of the matter. That’s really interesting.
It’s all wrong
….and replace swearing on the Bible in our courts with the declaration ‘I promise not to tell porkies’.
@Brian Hunt: They can swear on the secularist manifesto instead with its four commandments.
https://cdn.ymaws.com/www.tocico.org/resource/resmgr/toc_handbook/00_cox_appendix_a_p001-002.pdf
Worshipping Royal Society icons is not a pleasant position to be in.
@Gerald Kelleher: you must waste hours every day of your life spewing out the same tired,uninteresting,barely relevant,one dimensional,monotonous,boring word salas day in day out.Life is short and spending that much time debating with strangers is probably one of the most foolish ways to squander your time.Move on man.
@Johnny King: Nah. ChatGPT pulls all that stuff up in seconds.
Very surprised at the reaction what harm is a few prayers shouldnt supress peoples beliefs.If it was Muslim prayers having to be said wouldn’t matter if people complained they’d go ahead and if they dared to complain you can rest assured they’d be immediately confronted over it.
That would be an ecumenical matter.
Get down off that cross. We could use the wood!
@Killian Prendergast: Tom Waits?
I only came here to read the comments.
Ban all religions. The world would be a place. 3500 gods, prove to me that your God is the true God.
Get rid of the prayer, and keep the crucifix.
Well to be fair it seems like councils are still stuck in the 1930s.
have your say