Vatican labels Ireland gay marriage vote ‘defeat for humanity’

The Guardian newspaper reports that a senior Vatican official has attacked the legalisation of gay marriage in Ireland. The referendum last Saturday, overwhelmingly backed marriage equality , but he claimed that it was a “defeat for humanity.”

“I was deeply saddened by the result,” Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican’s secretary of state, said at a conference in Rome on Tuesday night.

“The church must take account of this reality, but in the sense that it must strengthen its commitment to evangelisation. I think that you cannot just talk of a defeat for Christian principles, but of a defeat for humanity.”

Ireland became the first country to legalise gay marriage by popular vote after a referendum found that 62% of voters were in favour of changing the constitution to allow gay and lesbians to marry.

While the results were celebrated by advocates of gay rights in Ireland and around the world, it was also seen as a clear sign of how wide the chasm has grown between young people in what has traditionally been a staunchly Catholic country and the church itself, which says that homosexual acts are a sin and vehemently opposes gay marriage.

Parolin’s comments are sure to revive the debate about the church’s attitude to gay rights and equality under the papacy of Pope Francis, who once famously said “who am I to judge?” when asked about the existence of a “gay lobby” within the Vatican.

 That remark had spurred hope among progressive Catholics that the church was entering a new era of tolerance and acceptance of gays.

The Guradian reports that Parolin’s remarks on the Irish vote are significant given the broader role Parolin plays in crafting the church’s message on major diplomatic and social issues.

At the time of his appointment in 2013, veteran Vatican reporter John Allen wrote in the National Catholic Reporter that Parolin had been “on the front lines of shaping the Vatican’s response to virtually every geopolitical challenge of the past two decades”. Among other issues, the Italian cardinal has been an outspoken advocate for action to combat global warming.

In recent remarks, he denounced the “globalisation of indifference and the economy of exclusion” that has put the planet in peril.

He has also been the public face of Francis’s diplomatic efforts, including the church’s role in helping the US and Cuba to restore diplomatic ties.