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Gay Marriage, Ireland: Archbishop Supports Civil Unions.

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Gay marriage will not come to Ireland until 2015, when a referendum will be held, to approve a recommendation last year by the country’s constitutional convention – but already, some benefits are being seen, in both Church and state. In the secular sphere, legislation for marriage equality cannot be introduced until after approval by the referendum, the government has announced that meanwhile, it will recognize same – sex marriages contracted abroad. That “abroad” soon include marriages in England or Wales, for those couples who satisfy British law (but not yet, Northern Ireland).

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In the Catholic Church, the early debate on the subject has already drawn some unpleasant language, which has prompted Archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin, to warn against intemperate language – and to refer to homophobia as “an insult to God”.  This is notable enough, when so many other bishops, in the USA, Scotland and elsewhere, resorted to nasty, homophobic language themselves in their campaigns to forestall equality. But at least as notable, is a further observation by Martin – that Church teaching did not exclude same – sex couples from celebrating their unions in other forms of recognition outside marriage, for example in civil unions.


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(Archbishop Diarmuid Martin)  said Church teaching was that marriage was between a man and a woman, exclusively, but that this approach did not exclude gay people from celebrating their union by a different means

-Belfast Telegraph

With this statement of support, he joins an expanding list of senior bishops and cardinals who have made public similar support (and an unknown number who share those views, but have not made their thoughts public). Until this announcement, I had not seen any further bishops saying so, but that could be simply that the extraordinary series of supportive statements coming directly from Pope Francis made these observations by bishops seem to them less urgent, or that statements have been made, and not seen as newsworthy – or that the continuing progress to full equality has made support for civil unions simply less important. I don’t know which. However, this news from Ireland is a useful reminder that when bishops the bishops gather in Rome for the synod later this year, they will include in their number a significant number who have already publicly expressed support for some form of legal recognition of same – sex unions. They and their colleagues will then have to turn their attention to finding appropriate pastoral responses which satisfy the requirements in church teaching for “respect, compassion and sensitivity”

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