Archbishop notes zero progress on new Church-State covenant

The Government’s lack of progress on developing a new covenant between Church and State that was proposed by the Taoiseach in his address to Pope Francis last August, has been raised by the Catholic Archbishop of Dublin.

In an address in Limerick yesterday, Archbishop Diarmuid Martin said that last August Leo Varadkar “expressed the belief that ‘that the time has now come for us to build a new relationship between Church and State in Ireland – a new covenant for the 21st Century’”.

“He spoke about an Ireland ‘in which religion is no longer at the centre of our society, but in which it still has an important place’,” the Archbishop said.

However, he added that “so far no progress has been made by the Government” in developing the idea.

While Brexit was taking up a lot of politicians’ time, the Archbishop said “this does not mean that this dialogue is not important not just for the interests of churches and Government, but rather for the good of Irish society”.