Oscar-winning actor Jeremy Irons has said he thinks abortion is a “sin” because it represents a “tremendous mental attack” on women. Irons, widely praised for his roles in the television adaptation of Brideshead Revisited and in The Mission, where he played a Jesuit missionary, said he is grateful that the Catholic Church was against the practice. “I believe women should be allowed to make the decision, but I also think the Church is right to say it [abortion] is a sin,” he said in an interview with the Guardian newspaper. “Because sin is an action that harms us. Lying harms us. Abortion harms a woman – it’s a tremendous mental attack, and physical, sometimes. But we seem to get that muddled. In a way, thank God the Catholic Church does say we won’t allow it, because otherwise nobody’s saying that it’s a sin.” Irons also said it was a mistake for countries in the West to reject their Christian inheritance in favour of secularism. He said: “Our society is based on a Christian structure. If you take those religious tenets away, then anything goes and it will become terrible – and you usually get into trouble. The actor also defended marriage, saying it “does give us a strength” because “it’s quite hard to get out of, and so it makes us fight more to keep it together. “If divorce becomes dead easy – which it sort of has – then we don’t have that back-up because, for everybody, relationships are hard.” Irons, who lives in Cork, has said he doesn’t “go to church much”; but, with his wife, Sinéad Cusack, he has raised his two sons as Catholic.