From today’s Indo:

TAOISEACH Bertie Ahern said yesterday that “aggressive secularism” had no place in modern pluralist Ireland.Mr Ahern was inaugurating a Church-State forum which he described as representing “a new and important strand in the civic and political culture of the State”. […]”There is a form of aggressive secularism which would have the State and state institutions ignore the importance of this religious dimension,” the Taoiseach said.”Such illiberal voices would diminish our democracy. They would deny a crucial dimension of the dignity of every person and their rights to live out their spiritual code within a framework of lawful practice, which is respectful of the dignity and rights of all citizens.””It would be a betrayal of the best traditions of Irish Republicanism to create such an environment,” he said.

But what prompted this suspiciously coherent attack on the godless? Did Ahern recently hurl Daniel Dennett’s Breaking the Spell across the room? Maybe he got car-sick from reading Richard Dawkins’s latest opus while being chauffeured to a Londis opening. Or perhaps Paddy the Plasterer mentioned something over a few jars in Fagan’s about Leo Strauss’s belief in the role of religion in imposing order on the polity.