Quotes of the week

Priests were raping little boys and girls, and the men of God who were responsible for them not only did nothing; they hid it all. For decades. Monsignors, auxiliary bishops, bishops, archbishops, cardinals have mostly been protected; many have been promoted.

It is even more important that we challenge the preaching of modesty codes for women. But how do we do that if the debate is constantly shut down? We are in danger of fostering an atmosphere where the silent Muslim majority dare not voice their concerns.

The best guarantee of religious freedom and religious tolerance is a well-organised secular state. The courts and the state should take no views on the existence of God…. There is a higher authority, it's called the law.

I talked my daughter out of hijab. I would have burnt her veil had she chosen it. My mum's generation didn't come to this country to be subjugated and see the rise of Islamism & jihadism again. They valued British values where they had autonomy, rights and freedoms no one ever gave them.

In their narrow focus on issues such as 'Islamophobia' and foreign policy, they ignore the reality that many Muslims are more interested in the same issues as the wider population: jobs, education and the NHS.

Don't shut down discussion; that way lies censorship and a narrowing of vision. The biggest mistake at the moment is to talk about offending the Muslim 'community'… It lumps people into one homogeneous group, depersonalises them and makes it easier to attack them en masse.

I can't bear it that the frightful, terrifying man is on the loose again and doing his worst… I'll see off this horrid man if he tries anything again.

Hatred has been given a mainstream legitimacy.

It's an ecclesiastical protection racket, and the attitude is that anyone who seeks to in any way threaten the reputation of the church as an institution has to be destroyed.

All of us at the time were saying, well, he wasn't raping anybody. There was no penetrative sex. And I think our weakness was actually to put it as the lowest of the low instead of seeing that whatever it is, it's unbecoming of a bishop.

Every time a Muslim or anyone else pops their head above the parapet to try to deal with some of the genuine problems the community faces, this toxic coalition emerges to try to cut it off... No one wins but the extremists.

The education system should be about having children together from all different backgrounds and if religion is important to parents or to a community, it can certainly be done outside of school time or perhaps at the weekend, or the churches themselves could step up to the plate.

For many people, the things I have been talking about today are too sensitive and too difficult for them to want to risk giving offence. They are easy things to skirt, yet the risk of doing so is great. If we leave these topics to the likes of the English Defence League and British National party on the one hand and Islamists on the other, then the mission of integration will fail.

It was part of my culture. It was something that I was told was better for the child, cleaner... but as I've got older [I've realised] my cultural views don't make it different to what it actually is.

I would assume what Mr Cunningham means isn't just that [Catholic schools] accept children from all faiths but they accept their views. If that was really the case you've got to question what the point in Catholic schools is. Surely that would make them nothing more than a comprehensive school.

Dr Singh may be ludicrous but he is also consequential.

I'm telling El Al that if you give in to the terrorism of Haredi-hating groups and remove a passenger who behaved properly and asked nicely to sit next to a man, we will remove hundreds of thousands of your passengers every year. Terror against terror.

If the state's role is to promote integration and equality, it's counter-intuitive to allow schools which are distinguished by religious faith, whether that is Church in Wales, Roman Catholic or Muslim.

The British values and equality policy they [Jewish schools] are expected to promote and protect also secure our freedom of religion and safeguard Jewish people as a minority group.

Education should inspire rational thought and display the pleasures of deep understanding; it should not propagate the social poison of divisive dogma.

Something else that makes a mockery of the system is the fact that we still have clerics legislating – the 26 bishops, or lords spiritual. The only other country that has clerics who legislate is Iran. I shall let it sink in that we are part of that.

By removing this provision from our constitution, we can send a strong message to the world that laws against blasphemy do not reflect Irish values and that we do not believe such laws should exist.

The best we can do for our children is to teach them to think for themselves, not tell them what to think.