Mags GarganChurch leaders have started to distribute a pastoral letter on marriage to parishes in the North, after doubts were raised about the Church’s commitment to promoting marriage when it was revealed that only a small quantity of the leaflets had been printed.
Earlier this month, The Irish Catholic established that only 170,000 copies of The Meaning of Marriage were distributed to parishes in the Republic, despite the fact that recent statistics show that more than 1.75million Catholics in the Republic attend Mass weekly. At the time, the document had not been distributed to parishes in the North. In recent weeks the Northern dioceses have begun to issue the leaflet to their parishes.
Parish priests in the Diocese of Derry received just nine copies of the pastoral letter for dissemination in their parish “as they think appropriate”.
In an accompanying letter, Bishop Donal McKeown said that while this was “a relatively small number of hard copies of the pastoral statement”, that “many people now routinely access information and documents through the internet” and “an online version can be accessed”.
The Meaning of Marriage was launched in December during a quarterly meeting of the Irish Bishops Conference.