Sir, – Further to Joe Humphreys’s column on why Irish atheists still need the Catholic Church, as a thirty-something Irish woman who was brought up in an atheist home, I have never felt part of Irish Catholic society (“Why Irish atheists still need the Catholic Church”, Opinion & Analysis, January 14th). Nor have I ever felt the need to cling to Catholicism for my moral compass. Rather, I have felt suffocated by the Irish Catholic Church’s overarching influence in all aspects of public and social policy and that routinely denies Irish women the full enjoyment of our human rights. Whether it is the Constitution’s insistence that Irish women’s rightful place is within the home, the continued existence of the Eighth Amendment, the denial of our sexual and reproductive freedoms, the lack of real sex education based on positive messages about sex, pleasure, our bodies and consent, the horrific legacy of the Magdalene laundries, innumerable child sex abuse scandals, the culture of victim-blaming in sexual assault cases, the light sentences received by sex offenders or the lack of female representation in Irish politics, Ireland is very often not a good place to be a woman.

So when Joe Humphreys talks about the church’s egalitarianism, what concept of equality is he referring to exactly? The Catholic Church’s idea that women are second-class citizens whose bodies need to be regulated and controlled?

It is easy to pick out a few choice lines from the preaching of Jesus or from the social messages of Pope Francis while ignoring centuries of discrimination and oppression of women in the name of religion that continue to limit the freedoms and choices of ordinary Irish women day after day. What Irish atheists really need is a complete separation of the Catholic Church from public policy, particularly in health and education. – Yours, etc,

AISLING WALSH,

Guatemala City.