IRELAND
Catholic Herald (UK)
Church in Ireland appeals for new inclusive language
The head of the Irish bishops’ conference has distanced himself from comments made by American Cardinal Raymond Burke concerning Irish voters who backed same-sex marriage.
Reacting to the May 22 poll, in which voters supported the redefinition of marriage by a margin of 62 percent to 38 percent, Cardinal Burke told the Newman Society, Oxford University’s Catholic Society: “It’s just incredible. … Pagans may have tolerated homosexual behaviors, they never dared say this was marriage.”
Asked about the comments during an interview with RTE Radio, Archbishop Eamon Martin of Armagh, Northern Ireland, president of the bishops’ conference, said yesterday: “I wouldn’t use that language.”
He said: “Throughout the debate and the discussion, we did ask people to try to be respectful and inoffensive in language.”
The archbishop also referred to comments by the Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, that the result represented a “defeat for humanity”.
“I think what Cardinal Parolin was expressing is our deeply held conviction about marriage … he was trying to express the loss that occurred here,” he said.
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