I watched Boyzone’s Keith Duffy chatting to Tommy Tiernan last Saturday night. He talked casually about his faith. He prays to Mary the mother of God as prayer helped him in tough times and he remains thankful for the power of prayer.

I couldn’t help but think that as he spoke, there would have been many viewers across Ireland angrily rolling their eyes, putting him down as some sort of “religious freak”.

But the flip side to our journey to being a more liberal and tolerant society is the diametrically opposite attitude towards faith and religion

That is the world we live in now. Yet, while we congratulate ourselves for being this new, open and all inclusive Ireland, I wonder are we really?

The Pride Parade in Dublin last Saturday is one good example of how open, progressive and inclusive Ireland has become.

And that is great to see. But the flip side to our journey to being a more liberal and tolerant society is the diametrically opposite attitude towards faith and religion.

There was a dark time when people were afraid or embarrassed to talk openly about their sexuality. Well now the same could be said of people of faith, people who go to mass.

The culprits for this are not the liberal lefty media as some devout zealots might suggest. No, the culprits are the institutional Catholic Church, the repressive hierarchy within and those abuse deniers that helped cover up the scandals.

But it has reached a point where it is so rare to see anybody, especially a relatively young person like Keith Duffy, so open about their faith

So it is not hard to see why people have such a dim view of religion and the church, including all right-thinking Catholics.

But it has reached a point where it is so rare to see anybody, especially a relatively young person like Keith Duffy, so open about their faith.

I dropped into mass last Sunday. Even I have to think twice about saying that for fear it will offend people.

That’s my point. Because sadly and wrongly, the view abounds that by going to mass or baptising a child, people are somehow condoning the sins of the church.

And maybe that is why people hide from discussing anything to do with their faith or why they chose to send their children to a Catholic school over an Educate Together one.

I do appreciate that view, particularly when it is voiced by those who did suffer abuse.

But not everybody that goes to mass now and again, or who gets married in a church is clutching rosary beads and stopping to recite the Angelus twice a day. I saw people of all shapes and sizes, all ages, men and women at mass last Sunday.

No more than myself, no doubt most are hypocrites for I know of very few people who follow the archaic teachings of the Church to the letter of the law

And the priest Father Dan Joe is one of the world’s good people, a man of huge kindness and generosity. In other words, I saw normal people there – including a few I bumped into in the pub late the night before.

No more than myself, no doubt most are hypocrites for I know of very few people who follow the archaic teachings of the Church to the letter of the law. I certainly don’t, and remain totally agnostic to the idea of an afterlife for example.

Still, I go when I can because I feel better in myself when I do. And I am sure people pray and go to mass for a variety of good positive reasons in this increasingly challenging world.

So then why has it become so risky, so taboo to be open about faith in this new all welcoming, all inclusive modern Ireland? We can be very duplicitous when it suits us.

How real is reality TV?

I might watch Love Island if they allowed ordinary run-of-the-mill members of the human race on rather than, from what I’ve seen, people who are totally non-representative of the majority of young people I know.