Courtney McGrailDear Editor, I am somewhat surprised that the Association of Catholic Priests (ACP), have come out as neutral in the forthcoming Marriage Equality Referendum.
Given that the ACP consistently proposes altering Catholic moral teaching, I am somewhat surprised at the tone of its decision to stay neutral i.e. after a survey of its members it’s decided not to come out one way or another. This proposes the notion that Catholic moral teaching is somehow to be determined on a case-by-case basis, instead of it being enshrined within the teachings of the Church.
If I was in Ireland, I would expect the clergy to teach without fear or favour the expressed teachings of the Church. Had the British government permitted the people to have a referendum on this issue, I would have voted no. Not purely on the basis of religious views but based on the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights, which has consistently held that Article 12 on marriage does not compel a state to legislate for same-sex marriage. The lead case being Schalk and Kopf v. Austria 2010, in which incredibly the British government was the only state party to intervene and did so to support traditional marriage.
The Strasbourg Court held that whilst same-sex couples could meet the requirement of having a family life as protected by Article 8, that private life did not amount to a family life under that article, as a reading of Articles 8 and 12 meant that the convention saw marriage as a building block for the family.
Given in the Austrian case, as in Irish law, there are comparable civil structures allowing same-sex couples to register their union and to receive the civil effects of marriage, i.e. tax and inheritance, the court also found that there was no discrimination in the regimes under Article 14.
Yours etc.,
Christopher Keeffe,
West Harrow, Middlesex,
England.