Conflicts between Political Boundaries and Ethnicity

Ethnicity and political boundaries are two very similar ideas but have a different definition. They both separate things, humans, countries, states, etc. Ethnicity separates humans and is easily confused with race but not everyone that is Hispanic is Catholic and not every Catholic is Hispanic. What makes a person part of an ethnicity is not only what religion they practice, but also where they are from, the language they speak and other similar factors. Political boundaries, to me, are simpler to define. A boundary is put to separate things from each other. In the case of a political boundary, it is a way to separate land owned by different communities or populations that govern themselves and do with their land differently than other countries or states. A perfect example of an ethnic group that doesn’t fall nicely within a political boundary is the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland. Originally, the 1937 Constitution of Ireland gave the Catholic Church a "special position" as the church of the majority. As with other predominantly Catholic European states, the Irish state underwent a period of legal secularization in the late twentieth century. In 1972, the article of the Constitution naming specific religious groups, including the Catholic Church, was deleted by the fifth amendment of the constitution in a referendum. Now-a-days 85% of Irish are Roman Catholic but the predominant religion is Christianity. When ethnicities and politics cross, huge conflicts arise. In the U.S. abortion is one. Catholics don’t believe in abortion but some politicians are pro-choice. This divergence between what a religion and what a politician believe in can influence a whole country.