The Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, Dr Desmond Connell, yesterday criticised the Constitutional Review Group's proposal to delete the preamble to the Constitution, with its invocation of Christ.
Addressing the annual Mass marking the opening of the new law term, Dr Connell said: "The majority view of the Constitutional Review Body goes too far in effectively recommending the deletion of the preamble, although an amended statement of the essential points it contains might today be considered more appropriate."
The preamble to the Constitution acknowledges "all our obligations to our Divine Lord, Jesus Christ who sustained our fathers through centuries of trial".
It states that the Constitution is adopted and enacted "in the name of the Most Holy Trinity from whom is all authority and to whom as our final end all actions of men and states must be referred".
The Archbishop said no measure passed by the Oireachtas could have the force of law if it violated a principle enshrined in the Constitution. While this assertion of the primacy of natural law was often traced to Catholic influence, natural law had roots in European culture "more ancient and inclusive than Catholic tradition alone", he said.
There was truth in the claim that Catholic influence had helped to shape the constitutional recognition of natural law, the archbishop said.
"But to leave it at that is to forget the historical experience of our people, who for centuries endured the injustice created by a body of positive law that systematically violated their human rights."
He said those who drafted the Constitution intended "to put that experience behind us for ever, and their work gave expression to the noblest of Irish political aspirations".
The archbishop added: "The various movements that culminated in Irish freedom owed the legitimacy they may properly claim to the truth that asserts the primacy of natural law."
The congregation at yesterday's Mass at St Michan's Church, Halston Street, Dublin, included the Chief Justice, Mr Liam Hamilton, the chairman of the Bar Council, Mr John MacMenamin SC, Mr Frank Daly, president of the Incorporated Law Society, Mr Justice Costello, president of the High Court, and the acting president of the Circuit Court, Judge Sheridan.
Meanwhile at the equivalent Church of Ireland service at St Michan's Church, Church Street, the Bishop of Meath and Kildare, the Most Rev Dr Richard Clarke, said that the church had "many of the comfortable aspects of ghetto". "And the law?" he asked. "Can it not equally be said of a legal system, even an independent legal system, that it is also a place which can flourish, isolated by walls, from the world of death and trains and camps, its own traditions and career structure insulating it from a world where, for example, over a thousand children will have died needlessly from starvation since this service began, taking the average of such a death every two seconds?"
The bishop was addressing a congregation which included members of the diplomatic corps and special guests, including Mr Robert Owen, chairman of the General Council of the Bar in London, and from Northern Ireland, Mr Justice John Pringle and Mr Alastair Rankin, president of the Law Society.
The Archbishop of Dublin, the Most Rev Walton Empey, presided at the service, and participants included the Rev Frank Sellar, Moderator of the Dublin and Munster Presbytery of the Presbyterian Church, the Rev Thomas Kingston of the Methodist Church and Canon David Pierpoint.
The US ambassador, Mrs Jean Kennedy Smith, the British ambassador, Ms Veronica Sutherland, and ambassadors from Japan, Finland, Denmark and Sweden also attended.