David QuinnPope Francis has repeatedly said that marriage should not be redefined, priests should follow his lead, writes David Quinn
My parish priest spoke about the marriage referendum at Mass on Sunday. He left it until the end of the notices and then spoke about it in his usual gentle but quietly impressive way for about three minutes.
He noted that the Church seemed to be very much in the minority on the issue because every political party was in favour, virtually all of the media, and seemingly every organ of ‘official Ireland’, including even the head of the IDA.
My PP remarked that the head of the IDA had said that if we vote ‘yes’ on May 22 it would be ‘good for jobs’. My PP said he didn’t understand how this would be so, but then he wasn’t an economist and maybe someone could explain to him why gay marriage would promote jobs. This provoked laughter from members of the congregation.
Controversy
My parish priest isn’t comfortable talking about this kind of thing because of the sort of controversy it can generate. Probably an awful lot of priests around the country feel like him.
Will a mother in the congregation with a gay son or daughter chastise the priest afterwards for speaking out? Will he be accused of ‘interfering’ in politics?
A priest might also fear that if he connects marriage to a child’s right to a mother and a father, a woman raising a child on her own might attack him. So anything to do with marriage and the family is potentially tricky terrain.
But my PP successfully navigated it. He didn’t tell people how to vote. He made the crucial distinction between the circumstances of life that can lead to a child being raised by a single parent and making what amounts to a formal declaration in the section of the Constitution dealing with the family, that there is no special value at all in having a mother and a father.
With that single distinction, he ensured that no reasonable person who had gone through (say) a marriage breakdown could be insulted by what he had to say.
He also said that gay people must be respected but wondered if there is a better way to do that than by overturning a view of marriage common to virtually every major religion and all major cultures.
He said he has wrestled with himself for a long time before deciding to speak about the referendum but in the end decided it was his duty to do so as the issue is so important.
After Mass he waited on the church grounds to meet people. I saw a well-groomed looking woman, roughly middle-aged, approach him with a determined look in her eye. I feared the worst. Was she about to upbraid him?
On the contrary, she thanked him effusively and shook his hand warmly for what he had said.
She told him she was delighted to finally hear someone in a leadership position speak out and that she was scared to open her mouth because whenever she did angry ‘yes’ voters would instantly condemn her.
She was simply relieved that her parish priest had said something.
I suspect many more people would be as well. We do not live a properly free society when people are afraid to say what they think about something as utterly fundamental as the family.
Something has gone badly wrong when people are afraid to say that they believe in the family of man, woman and child based on marriage.
Many people are looking for proper leadership on this issue. Apart from national figures, they are looking for leadership from figures in their own communities and in many cases they will be their priests.
Some priests, however, are probably telling themselves that civil marriage is a civil matter only and religious marriage won’t be affected and therefore the referendum is none of their business.
But civil marriage is everyone’s business. The family is everyone’s business. The vast majority of us either grew up in a family or have a family. How can the fate of the family and marriage not be everyone’s business?
Sexual orientation
Other priests might agree with Fr Tony Flannery that God loves us all regardless of sexual orientation and therefore same-sex couples should be allowed to marry each other.
It’s true that God loves all people regardless of sexual orientation but that doesn’t mean we have to redefine marriage.
If marriage is by definition the sexual union of a man and a woman, then any other kind of union is something else and should have a different name.
Why is it so hard to see that the sexual and emotional union of a man and a woman is different in kind from any other sort of relationship and ought to have its own special social institution? Other relationships can be dealt with in their own way.
In any case, many Catholics are crying out for leadership, and the family and marriage are simply too important for them not to be offered that leadership.
A number of bishops around the country have already issued their own very good statements on the topic. Pope Francis has repeatedly said that marriage should not be redefined and that children deserve a mother and a father whenever possible.
So there is plenty of material for priests to draw on who wish to speak on this issue. The crucial thing is that they make a strong distinction between the circumstances of life that can lead to a child growing up without a mother or a father, and redefining marriage in such as a way as to attack the right to a mother and father at its very root.
And if they do speak out on it, they shouldn’t be surprised when many Massgoers offer them hearty congratulations.