Step back from homophobia - Village Magazine

“homo”, “fag”, and “queer”. On my way to

school, I remember passing someone in

the street on the way to work who called

out “fairy”. I was threatened and changed

my route.

I well recall visiting school-friends at

the seminary in Maynooth in . I was

struck at how like our Catholic school it

was, being single sex, without women

teachers, and with the added struggle of

sexual abstinence. That is the world that

Irish Roman Catholic bishops were social-

ised into. Should we be surprised that they

teach as they do about same sex marriage?

The Roman Catholic bishops recently

upped the ante in their No campaign with

a threat to withdraw from the signing of

the civil marriage register at all

weddings in a Catholic church.

The bishops did not resort to

this supposed ‘nuclear option’

twenty years ago after the

legalisation of civil divorce. I

know that the Association of

Catholic Priests does not agree

with them. I know that in

County Donegal, some parish-

ioners walked out after the

priest in the pulpit preached for

a No vote.

A face glared down from an

aggressive poster calling for a

No Vote as I recently walked

down Shandon Street. Homophobic mes-

saging is sweeping across the country.

This is part of the emotional price to be

paid by being gay or lesbian and engaging

with the referendum campaign. This time

I did not change my route. The negative

messages are contradicted by my own per-

sonal experience of  years of a loving,

faithful, same-sex relationship.

There will be a price to be paid by the

institution of the Roman Catholic Church.

It will emerge as a smaller, more anti-gay

denomination. Ironically, it may be the

Catholic dissent, and the two Church of

Ireland Bishops, who may one day enable

the Roman Catholic Church to retrieve

something positive when in the future it

apologises for the wounds it inﬂicted on

the gay and lesbian minority and its oppo-

sition to same-sex marriage. •

ISHOP Kevin Doran of Elphin

insisted that the Roman Catholic

bishops’ opposition to same-sex

marriage is “not about homosexuality or

the gay lifestyle” last November and ﬁred

the opening shot in their campaign for a

No vote in the marriage equality referen-

dum. Last March, in an interview on

Newstalk, he went to say “the jury’s out”

on whether people are born gay and that

being gay is not what God intended. He

compared sexual orientation to a disabil-

ity (Down’s syndrome). How can a bishop

be so ill-informed?

Twenty years ago I was invited by the

Forum for Peace and Reconciliation to

present a sociological report on the Prot-

estant minority and

Catholic-Protestant marriage.

Later the Roman Catholic

Bishop of Killaloe, Willie

Walsh, wrote in the Furrow of

the “wounds” caused by his

fellow bishops by their opposi-

tion to mixed marriage. He

wrote “I feel that many of us

would want to apologise and

ask forgiveness from our non-

Roman brethren for that pain

and hurt…It has been a long

journey from that sadness and

isolation to the joyfulness of

today’s inter-church

marriages”.

The Church of Ireland Bishop of Cork,

Dr Paul Colton, apologised last year for the

hurt Christian churches have caused les-

bian, gay, bisexual and trans people. He

later stated on BBC Radio Ulster that “I

certainly support civil same-sex mar-

riage”. Bishop Michael Burrows of Cashel,

Ferns and Ossory also declared for Yes at a

recent event for Faith in Marriage Equality

(FiME). Bishops have got it wrong before

and they were humble enough to admit it.

Growing up in Cork in the early s I

attended St Fin Barre’s secondary school.

The principal, Dr John Buckley, is now the

Roman Catholic Bishop of Cork. Jerry

Buttimer, now a TD for Cork and an out

gay man, was in the year behind me. Every

day in the classroom, I was ‘wounded’

when I overheard the put-downs of

6May 2015

Step back from

homophobia

Catholic

Church

will lose

support,

again.

By Richard

O’Leary

Marriage Referendum

22 May 2015

NEWS

SPECIAL

Sociologist Dr Richard

O’Leary is co-founder

of Faith in Marriage

Equality, representing

a range of faiths. He

and his late partner,

the Rev Mervyn

Kingston, were the ﬁrst

couple to have their

UK civil partnership

recognised by the Irish

government in January

2011 following an Equal

Status case.

The Association

of Catholic

Priests does not

agree with the

association of

Catholic bishops

“

Bishop Kevin Doran