Madam, - On a visit last week to the St Columbanus monastery in northern Italy, President McAleese said that the Irish saint Columbanus would be a very appropriate choice as a patron saint of the European Union.
What I cannot comprehend is how a Christian saint could become the patron saint of a secular society (the European Union) when that secular society does not even acknowledge the existence of God in its proposed constitution, although that Christian God has been worshipped in Europe for over a thousand years and even today is acknowledged and still worshipped by the majority of the 350 million citizens of the European Union.
I would think that a non-Christian citizen of the European Union would have a legitimate and fundamental right, in truth, to be unable to acknowledge such a constitution and any laws emanating from such a document if a religious icon such as St Columbanus, or indeed any other Christian saint, were to be recognised and acknowledged for any reason by the European Union. - Yours, etc,
PAUL DALTON, Ardrigh Road, Dublin 7.