Saying Yes to Marriage Equality in Ireland on May 22, 2015

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Bishop of Limerick Worries About Children

WHEN I heard the Catholic Bishop of Limerick today invoking the protection of children when he called on Catholics in his dioceses to vote against marriage equality, I was reminded of a Confirmation ceremony I attended in Limerick city in 2010.

We were guests of a friend whose daughter was among the many children from Caherdavin being confirmed in Christ the King church. 

The church was full of bright happy children who were joined by their parents, siblings, friends and family for this very important day.

Some were there with just one parent, some with both, some with grannies or grandfathers, or aunts, some were black, most were white, some were Traveller, most were settled. 

For all I know some had gay or lesbian parents.

The girls were beautiful and the boys were smart. When the little ones in the congregation got bored with proceedings they wandered about in the aisle or went to visit other little ones in other pews.

One of which was filled end to end with steps-of-stairs little girls all done out in wafts of peachy taffeta and silk, each more splendid than the other. Their three-piece-suited brother was up front by the alter with the others waiting for the bishop’s gentle slap of initiation to the life of a (albeit very young) adult Catholic.

But there was no bishop that day. Not because he’d been unexpectedly delayed, or had suddenly fallen ill, or had to attend to something even more pressing that this Confirmation.

No, the bishop was missing because he had resigned and had not yet been replaced. There was something of a shortage of eligible bishops at the time because a good many of them had resigned at about the same time and, clearly, suitable candidates were not coming on stream quickly enough to fill the vacant thrones.

According to the Irish Times newspaper, on his resignation in December 2009, the bishop said: “I know full well that my resignation cannot undo the pain that survivors of abuse have suffered in the past and continue to suffer each day. I humbly apologise once again to all who were abused as little children.”

As we all know, including the current bishop of Limerick, the resigning bishop was apologising to children who had been victims of clerical sexual abuse – up and down the Catholic dioceses of Ireland, for decades – while the hierarchy of which he was a member failed to stop it.

And so there was no bishop to administer the little pat to the children in Christ the King in Caherdavin that sunny day in 2010. 

Now his successor wants people to discriminate against gay people, including those with children, by refusing them the protection of the Constitution for their relationships, their families and their children, because he says he’s worried about the children.

He might do better to consult the archives of the national newspapers around the time of his predecessor’s resignation to remind himself of what it is that poses a threat to children living in Ireland.