The Referenda in Ireland, May 2015

Over the weekend the results of the two referenda that were held in Ireland have been announced. Both referenda were held in order to amend the Constitution of the Republic of Ireland (I am using the plural because I assume there were two ballot papers but I am not sure about this).

The referendum proposal which asked voters if they wanted the minimum age of the President to be reduced from 35 to 21 was rejected; the proposal to allow same-sex marriages was accepted by a margin of 62.07%.

The population of Ireland -a country small enough to fit inside Indiana- both north and south is approx 6.4 million, of whom it is estimated less than 5% claim to be LGBT. This raises the question why this particular issue became such a major issue in Ireland. The clear answer appears to be related to the historic role played by the Roman Catholic Church in both Irish politics and society, which raises the further question -was this a vote on gay marriage or a vote that gave people an historic opportunity to vote against the Church?

The article by Paul Vallelly in the link below is I think one of the most interesting discussions on the referendum. He makes many potent points, one concerns the impact of EU memberhsip and modernisation, the other one concerning the long history not just of paedophile priests in Ireland, but a brutalised education system in which priests and nuns routinely dished out corporal punishment in the name of the Lord, and this and decades of denial by the church has fractured the age-old relationship:

It was, of course, the paedophile priests who sent that relationship into freefall. Sunday Mass attendance, which was more than 90 per cent in the 1970s, had fallen to 34 per cent by 2013. The Archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin, estimates that in the capital, the figure has plunged to only 18 per cent. Many in Ireland now describe themselves as “post-Catholics”. They are, according to Michael Kelly, the editor of The Irish Catholic newspaper, “functionally atheist”.

I wonder, did 5% of the population give 62.07% the opportunity to voice their desire for a constitutional change that reflects changes in Ireland?

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/...-10272590.html

http://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-s...-gay-1.2155679

Those of you following this story and its aftermath may have seen the response from The Vatican -at a time when Pope Francis is being presented as -by their standards- a liberal Pontiff...
Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican's 'Secretary of State' and second-in-command to Francis described the result of the referendum on marriage in Ireland as 'a defeat for humanity'....read on, if you want to.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...t-for-humanity

One might have hoped that the proclaimed representatives of Christ on Earth would rush to bless all couples who commit their love to each other and seek the blessings of their family, their community and their Church. God is Love, but Love is

1) a battlefield?
2) not having to say you’re sorry?
3) a dog from hell?
4) like a lion’s tooth?