David QuinnOur priests ought to follow example of Pope Francis in speaking out, writes David Quinn
What role, if any, should priests have in the upcoming marriage referendum? Many priests will undoubtedly be inclined to steer well clear of it for a variety of reasons.
They might tell themselves that they have no business ‘getting involved in politics’. They might say the proposed change to marriage won’t affect religious marriage, that it is only civil marriage which will be affected.
Or they might have convinced themselves that the referendum really is about equality and therefore supporting same-sex marriage is a way of supporting Gospel values.
Finally, many priests will steer clear simply because they might lack the confidence to address it and will be worried about inviting trouble from some of their parishioners.
Let’s start with what priests can do with little effort, and that is to encourage their parishioners to take away and read the bishops’ leaflet, ‘The Meaning of Marriage’, issued before Christmas.
This newspaper reported a few weeks ago that only 170,000 of the leaflets have been printed. At a minimum, enough should have been printed to go into every Mass-going household in the country. My own parish received only 100 copies. My PP mentioned it at the very end of Mass – the 100 copies went quickly.
He then ordered another 100 copies from Veritas at 50c per copy. These were taken up as well after he mentioned them again. He ordered another 100 copies and they are still going bit by bit.
My PP, a gentle sort of man, mentioned the leaflet in his own quiet way. He simply said that there is going to be a referendum on marriage later this year (May 22), that all the political parties are in favour and that people really ought to acquaint themselves with the other point of view and therefore should take home and read the bishops’ leaflet.
Parishioners
Every priest in the country could easily do something like this. They could also ask some of their parishioners to hand it out to people as they leave Mass to ensure everyone gets one.
And by the way, my PP didn’t receive a single complaint from anyone about mentioning the referendum. No-one accused him of ‘interfering in politics’. But even if they did, it would have been a completely bogus complaint.
It is not ‘interfering in politics’ to have an opinion about the nature of marriage. In fact, arguably it is politics that is interfering in marriage by trying to bring about such a radical change to it.
If our politicians get their way a gendered institution will be turned into a de-gendered one that pretends the differences between men and women and mothers and fathers don’t matter to anyone or anything, least of all to children.
But should a priest use the pulpit to talk about the nature of marriage? Absolutely. In fact, it would be very strange for a priest to be silent on something that is so vital to the common good as marriage.
Christians live in society like everyone else and by definition all of us, Christian and non-Christian alike, has a vested interested in the common good. We want to live in a just and well-run society, one that gives everyone, our children most of all, the best chance of a good life in every sense of that term.
The family, as both Article 41 of our Constitution and Article 16 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights say, is the “fundamental” unit of society.
Both articles have in mind the sort of families founded by men and women, because only men and women can have children together. Both Article 41 and 16 link the right to marry to the right to found a family.
If men and women don’t have children together, there is no society. And if men and women don’t raise their children together, that is bad for the children. It would be very odd for the Church and its leadership, including priests, not to express a view about this.
In fact, our priests ought to take a leaf out of Pope Francis’ book on this matter. When he was still Archbishop of Buenos Aires and the government there was legalising same-sex marriage, he said: “What is at stake here is the identity and the survival of the family: father, mother and children. What is at stake is the life of so many children who will be discriminated against from the get-go, by depriving them of the human development that God intended through a mother and a father.”
He has said similar things since becoming Pope. What he has said is absolutely accurate.
It is the sort of thing every priest up and down the country should be saying in the run-up to the referendum. They don’t even have to use their own words. They can quote Pope Francis. What Massgoer could reasonably object to the Pope being quoted from the pulpit, especially one so popular as Francis?