Diocesan News17 Mar 10

Bishop of Cork calls for a debate on the place of religion in Ireland

‘Time for a Debate about the Place of Religion in Irish Society and in our Constitution’ says Church of Ireland Bishop of Cork
 
Preaching at the Annual Civic Service, (attended by the Lord Mayor and City Council of Cork together with civic leaders and voluntary workers) to mark Saint Patrick’s Day in St Fin Barre’s Cathedral, Cork, the Right Reverend Paul Colton, Bishop of Cork, said that a debate about the place religion has in Irish society and specifically in our Constitution is now inevitable.

Bishop Colton said:
“In the wake of so much that has tilted our society on its axis; when so many have been left in despair and others are dislocated from familiar reference points in society, the question is already being asked: what place does religion have in the modern Ireland?  What place should it have?  There is no option now but to have this debate: it is inevitable.”
 
“We see this debate emerging also from the controversies about the patronage of education in our country; in the journey towards civil partnership legislation; in the wake of the blasphemy legislation, and now also in the openly articulated and very understandable hostility to institutional Christianity. “
 
“Isn’t it necessary now, in a more religiously diverse and more pluralist Ireland to have a debate specifically about the place which religion is accorded in our Constitution?  Christianity is being practised in more varieties than ever before in Ireland.  Within individual Christian denominations there is a greater diversity of outlooks and patterns of affiliation.  More followers of others of the great world faiths are living here.  In addition, and notably, there are significant numbers of people who prefer not to state their religion or to declare that they have no religion.   This is no longer the society to which Saint Patrick came.  This is no longer the Ireland of several decades, yet alone fifty years, ago.”
 
“Are there not issues to be debated in our society and to be determined by the people?  Already in 1996 the Constitution Review Group raised these issues in its report:  the Christian and Trinitarian preamble to the Constitution; and suggesting also that Article 44.1 be reformulated as a simple statement:  ‘The State guarantees to respect religion.’”
 
“I’ve no doubt some religious adherents will see such a debate as menacing.  To them I would say this:  God does not need the protection of our laws. A weak church, which thinks it needs to rely on legislative coercion as a tool of evangelism, has lost its own faith and confidence in a strong and appealing God.  Christians as believers, and churches as religious institutions, must come to terms with sharing the space – religious and secular – with others, whether religious or not; and if religious, of an increasingly complex variety. “