Greg Daly
Bishop Phonsie Cullinan Pro-lifers should take advantage of Ireland’s political ethics laws in order to ensure the referendum on repealing the Eighth Amendment is conducted fairly, a cross-denominational group of Christian leaders has said.
‘Is God for the 8th?’, a pamphlet signed by 120 Christian leaders from throughout Ireland, highlights how key organisations in the campaign to repeal Ireland’s constitutional protections for the unborn have been funded by money from overseas, noting how the Standards in Public Office Commission (SIPO) has already compelled the Abortion Rights Campaign to return the funds it had received from the US-based Open Society Foundation.
“More people need to file complaints to SIPO to ensure a level playing pitch,” the leaders urged.
Waterford and Lismore’s Bishop Phonsie Cullinan is among the 120 signatories of the ecumenical document, which has been worked on over the past seven months, and is signed by 48 Catholic clergy and lay leaders, 16 Church of Ireland clergy and lay leaders, 15 Methodist, Presbyterian and Baptist leaders, 39 Pentecostal leaders and two Messianic Jews.
Meanwhile, the two leading Church of Ireland clerics, Armagh’s Archbishop Richard Clarke and Dublin’s Archbishop Michael Jackson, have said that while they have difficulties with some aspects of Ireland’s current constitutional provisions around abortion, “unrestricted access to abortion in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, or indeed at any stage, is not an ethical position we can accept”.