Ireland's Catholic bishops have strongly criticised proposals from the Constitution Review Group that articles dealing with the family be changed in the Constitution. Patsy McGarry, Religious Affairs Correspondent, reports.
In 1996 a report from the review group recommended that Articles 41 and 42 be changed to accommodate family units in Ireland not based on marriage.
The bishops said the definition of the family as founded on marriage should be retained. In a joint submission to the Oireachtas Committee on the Constitution, they also said children in one-parent families are disadvantaged and argued strongly against same sex marriage.
"The question is not whether gay couples should be allowed marry, rather whether they can marry," the bishops said. Marriage "by its very nature requires a man and a woman" they added.
In their submission, the Irish Episcopal Conference and the office of public affairs at the Dublin archdiocese challenged the Constitution Review Group's conclusion that "social changes call for amendments to the Constitution".
Criticising the review group's analysis as "not detailed" they asked: "Is it not appropriate for a constitution to seek to shape civil society rather than merely to follow sociological trends?"
They accused the review group of not giving attention to the implications of changing the Constitution in this context.
They say no account was taken by the group of the evidence which would seem to suggest that the children of one-parent families, notwithstanding the best and commendable efforts of their parents, may be at a disadvantage when compared to those of traditional families. They described as "inadequate and unconvincing" the group's analysis of the philosophical basis of Articles 41 and 42 of the Constitution.
"These articles do not represent an arbitrary concept of the family, on the contrary, they are clearly based on a philosophical understanding of the nature of family life, of the responsibilities attaching to marriage and of the relationship between the family and the state.
"The group's report betrays no apparent interest in this philosophical dimension," they said.
They noted that "in striking contrast to the US constitution" the Irish Constitution recognises the family as the natural unit of society and as a moral institution possessing inalienable and imprescribable rights, antecedent and superior to all positive law, the bishops added. They continued: "It is not the Constitution that creates the family or that defines it, rather it recognises an institution that is prior to it."
On same sex marriage they said that church teaching stressed that marriage was "exclusively between a man and a woman".