Language used in Vatican document on blessing gay unions is ‘gratuitously cruel in the extreme’ says Mary McAleese

Former president Mary McAleese has challenged Irish bishops to acknowledge that the language used in the Vatican’s recent document on blessing gay unions is “gratuitously cruel in the extreme”.

She has sent correspondence to the head of the Catholic Church, Archbishop Eamon Martin, seen by the Irish Independent. Dr McAleese appeals for him to “please acknowledge the hurt these words of the CDF and Pope Francis have caused and will keep on causing”.

Her comments to the church leader are accompanied by a letter she has written to The Tablet, the international Catholic weekly, criticising the document’s contents and Pope Francis.

On Monday, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) issued a formal response to the question of whether the Catholic Church can bless gay unions.

In its Responsum on the blessing of the unions of persons of the same sex, it concluded that the Church does not have the power to bless same sex unions as it was impossible for God to “bless sin”.

While the Church should welcome gay people, it should not bless their unions since any such sacramental recognition could be confused with marriage, the document states.

A number of bishops and priests have strongly criticised the CDF document which was approved by Pope Francis. Last October, Pope Francis said in a documentary that same sex couples should be allowed to have civil unions.

In her letter to Archbishop Eamon Martin, who is head of the Irish Episcopal Conference, Dr McAleese said it had been heartening over the past few days to see “clerics and bishops (though not from Ireland in the case of the latter) take issue with the language of the Responsum Explanatory Memorandum. Their courage is commendable.”

“Is there any vestige of such episcopal courage here?” she challenged the Irish bishops.

She reminded Dr Martin that she had written to him recently seeking support from the Irish bishops for the 2020 Global Interfaith Commission’s Declaration of the Sanctity of Life and the Dignity of all which acknowledges “the harm done to our gay brothers and sisters by the language employed historically within faith systems”.

She admits she was taken by surprise by the “unbearably vicious language” of the Vatican document “which can only have brought more heartache to our gay children and to us their families”.

“Heartache and hurt fired like a missile from the centre of governance of the Church. Foolishly I dared to hope the language might reflect a growing awareness of the damage Church language has already wrought,” the former head of state admits.

Dr McAleese, who is a canon lawyer and a committed Catholic, warns that failure to challenge the Vatican document “bodes ill for the synodal journey” which the Irish bishops are preparing for the Irish church and is “simply unacceptable”.

She questions if the proposed synod will really be “an open, honest, good faith invitation to a listening dialogue especially to those who have left the Church or who are hanging on by a thread?”

Elsewhere in her letter, she points out that the Catholic Church runs 90pc of primary schools and 50pc of secondary schools in the country.

“School children in faith-based schools have rights under the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Our government is a State Party to that Convention (as is the Holy See) and thus a protector of those rights. Among them is the right of our children not to be exposed to cruelly worded teachings that conduce to homophobia by presenting same sex married couples as ipso facto sinful and incapable of receiving God’s grace.”

“We already know the dysfunction and damage those teachings have caused in the past and the message from the same sex marriage referendum was a resounding ‘Stop’. Did you not hear it?” she asks.

The Association of Catholic Priests has also criticised the recent document. In a statement, it said: “The ACP believes that the CDF document is unfortunate and unwise, both in content and in timing. It is also contradictory. The content is negative, and condemnatory.

“While it says that gay people are loved and valued by the Church, it then states that they are sinners, that their loving relationships are fundamentally opposed to God’s plan for creation.”

Online Editors