Ireland’s Catholic bishops have set out the case against the referendums on changing the sections of the Constitution on families and on mothers in the home.

In a statement read at some Masses on Sunday, they say that the proposed family amendment is likely to weaken the incentive for young people to marry, by putting so-called “durable relationships”  on a par with marriage, while the second proposed care amendment would abolish all reference to motherhood in the Constitution.

In their statement the bishops will say that the proposed family amendment to the Constitution “diminishes the unique importance of the relationship between marriage and family in the eyes of society and State and is likely to lead to a weakening of the incentive for young people to marry”.

The family, “based on the exclusive, lifelong and life-giving public commitment of marriage, is the foundational cell of society and essential to the common good,” they write.

Where the proposed care amendment was concerned, they said “rather than removing the present acknowledgment of the role of women and the place of the home, it would be preferable and consistent with contemporary social values that the State would recognise the provision of care by women and men alike.”