www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Ireland legalizes Gay Marriage

So, it seems that the Irish Catholic Church has spectacularly collapsed. Over 62% of Irish voted Yes, and 42 of 43 constituencies sided with legalization.

What now for Irish Catholicism- how does it recover? It has totally lost its credibility in the eyes of the Irish, apparently.

Unbelievable--Ireland was one of the most pious Catholic countries! I am shocked.

Why can't people just 'live and let live'. Why is legitimizing homosexuality suddenly the most important thing in the world?

Now we are also hearing more and more about transexualism.

Where will this sexually obsessed madness that is permeating western cultures end?

The Catholic Church utterly collapsed there- I think it will need to restore traditional Faith and Liturgy to revive itself.

The next thing that they are going to legalize is NAMBLA. Just a matter of time.

Truly sad.

Even more sad that there were priests who were publicly supporting it.

Scandalous!

Truly scandalous. Even the so called "practicing Catholic" prime minister supported it.

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Alice:

It's part of the secular campaign to marginalize the moral voice of Christianity in all situations. The next step is to make it a hate crime if one teaches children that marriage is only between one man and one woman. The question was asked at the recent Supreme Court arguments in favor of legalizing "gay marriage" across the board. When asked by one of the justices, the government attorney replied that this would be an issue at that stage if "gay marriage" were to be the law of the land. It has also been suggested that any religious institution that taught the traditional definition of marriage could lose its tax exempt status. And you know that the power to tax is the power to destroy--so there would be churches closed and church schools shuttered.

The goal is not tolerance; it's forced acceptance.

Bob

BenjaminRH:

There is no way to "revive" something that is moribund. It will take far more than "traditional faith and liturgy" to change Ireland. It will take another St. Patrick to begin anew the fundamental work of evangelization.

Besides, this is part of "traditional faith." It's interesting that the Archbishop of Dublin thinks, according to a statement he made to the media, that the Church must find a new message and a new voice to reach the young--whatever that might mean.

A further point to be made is what this means for us in other parts of the West.

Bob

Does anyone else see the pattern I see here here?

The Church has a scandal--Ireland, the abuse of children in its institutions, recently uncovered by the government, and the almost negligible steps taken against the religious orders and others responsible. The Church loses its moral authority in the eyes of believers because of it and the believers begin to decide every question without the traditional teaching of the Church. Contraception, abortion, now marriage.

I don't think it helped when Pope Francis seemed to signal that his new approach will not emphasize traditional teaching in the area of homosexuality: "Who am I to judge"? Apparently no one told him that that is his function with ordination. I'm not saying that a condemnation attitude should be the norm, but not to tell the truth about what has been revealed to us is not a merciful attitude though it may seem so in the secular mind.

It will be interesting to see what happens in other countries with Catholic populations. There seems to be a parallel developing in the United States.

Bob

Am I the only one who finds this pair of sentences amusing?

Aye, judgement and discernment are part of the obligation of any clerical order which includes the office of preaching. The one presenting a homily or sermon must discern truth and speak forthrightly against error in all its guises.

The obligation to defend truth against all adversaries is so much the greater for those who are called to the office of oversight which is the special ministry of the episcopacy. Those then elevated to even greater realms of administration have no greater task than preserving the deposit of the faith inherited from the saints.

Those who would neglect the ministry of the Keys are unworthy of Kingdom.

When I say 'live and let live', I mean 'do whatever makes you happy romantically' and leave politics, imposing agendas, prosletyzing, changing laws, redefining institutions, etc. out of it.

I did not intend to amuse anyone. I am most certainly not amused by western society today.

Alice, Moderator

The faith collapses when the shepherds don't do their jobs. The abuse crisis in Ireland weakened the faith, to be sure. The bishops didn't do very much to either prevent or to counteract it. Secularism seems to be the new world religion. It is everywhere and appears to be winning.

Actually the largest group of people outside Catholics in the United States are those who describe themselves as "nones." It's the answer to the question of "what is your religious affiliation?" And the answer is "none." They've edged Protestants Evangelicals in the past few years.

Interestingly, this group is being populated by young people of all backgrounds, so it would seem that everyone is missing the boat in passing along the Faith.

Bob

The media here, rightly or wrongly, tend to emphasize that the clergy sex scandals and the way the bishops in Ireland handled the matter helped weaken the Church's credibility on moral issues altogether.

Lay Catholics here tend to be quite agnostic and/or pro- same sex marriage, especially in the Catholic province of Quebec.

The "post-Catholic" phenomenon, however, is not a recent one. When on retreat at a Trappist monastery near Montreal, the monks told us that children in Catholic schools give priests and nuns the "silent treatment" when asked about religion - not even a "yes" or "no" to anything.

This needs to be studied in-depth and not by theologians, but by social scientists.

In my Church, our theologians really believe they don't need the insights or methods of the social sciences to address what are really religious sociological issues. That is a crying shame.

Alex