Diocesan News11 Nov 04

Bishop Colton to take part in European Consortium for Church and State Research

BISHOP COLTON TO TAKE PART IN EUROPEAN CONSORTIUM FOR CHURCH AND STATE RESEARCH

The Bishop?s Paper at the University of Tübingen will be entitled

"Religion and Law in Dialogue in Ireland"

The Right Reverend Paul Colton, Church of Ireland Bishop of Cork, has been accorded the honour of being invited to participate in and to present a paper at the annual meeting next week of the European Consortium for Church and State Research.

The Bishop who, alongside his demanding Episcopal responsibilities, is also currently a part-time LLM (Canon Law) student at Cardiff University will submit his paper - Religion and Law in Dialogue in Ireland ? to the meeting which takes place at the University of Tübingen, Germany from 18th November until 21st November.

Bishop Colton said

?I am overwhelmed and excited by this invitation which came to me from the Consortium through Professor Norman Doe at the Centre for Law and Religion (www.cf.ac.uk/claws/clr/) at Cardiff University.

The wonderful thing about studying Canon Law is that it affords me the opportunity to bring together the two strands of my studies so far - law and theology ? and on this occasion, to present to a gathering of academics, insights, from where, in my work as Bishop in Ireland, academic study encounters practical ministry and public policy.?
The European Consortium for Church and State Research was founded on December 12th 1989, with headquarters at the Istituto di Diritto Internazionale of the University of Milan. The Consortium is composed of a number of professors sharing a common interest in the relations between States and religious denominations in Europe from a historical, political and, particularly, juridical point of view.