17th November 2011
We are frequently told that, for Ireland to be truly “modern” and “pluralist”, it must remove the reference to God in the preamble to the Constitution. In fact, it is commonplace for European countries to include a reference to God in their constitutions or the preambles to their constitutions.
Our own preamble reads: “In the Name of the Most Holy Trinity, from Whom is all authority and to Whom,as our final end, all actions Both of men and States must be referred, we, the people of Éire, humbly acknowledging all Our obligations to our Divine Lord, Jesus Christ”
This, we are told, is backward and sectarian and puts us outside the European mainstream. It doesn’t. Not by a long shot.
For example, the preamble to the German Constitution speaks of Germany’s “responsibility before God and man”.
In the Swiss Constitution, the preamble begins with the words “In the name of Almighty God!“
The Greek Constitution says, “In the name of the Holy and Consubstantial and Indivisible Trinity” while the Greek Orthodox Church enjoys the status of an established church.”
Meanwhile the Constitution of Italy grants a specific status for the Catholic Church and similar arrangements are found in Andorra, Poland, Spain, and several Swiss cantons.
Liechtenstein, Malta and Monaco, which are admittedly small, recognise Catholicism as their state or official religion, while Denmark, England, Finland, Iceland, and Norway have established Protestant churches.
In other words, Ireland’s Constitutional preamble is well within the boundaries of what other European countries include in their foundational laws. If we were to get rid of it, it would certainly make us more secular, but not necessarily more modern and would imply that the ultimate source of law is, well, what exactly?
