Isn't it ironic for a member of the Catholic clergy to imply the Irish public are "worse than pagans"?

Asked by NerdyKeith (5489

) April 15th, 2016

This comment came about shortly after the Irish public voted in marriage equality in 2015.

Cardinal Burke was speaking to Oxford University’s Catholic Society, where he stated:
“I mean, this is a defiance of God. It’s just incredible. Pagans may have tolerated homosexual behaviours, they never dared to say this was marriage.”

Christianity as we know it, would be nothing without paganism. Since many aspects and practices contained in many of Christian religions are based on paganism. Such hypocrisy is off the scale. Clearly its not enough for the Catholic Church to be anti gay; they also have to be anti-pagan too?

What is your take on this double negative arrogance?

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2 Answers

I’ve not read the source, but the quote isn’t incorrect.

Irish pagans (at least those the Romans and the Catholic friars wrote about before the English showed up in the eleventh century) did tolerate homosexuality, but also had no legal equivalent of gay marriage.

Of course, their idea of marriage was a way to keep social rights and property within a family, so it sort of makes sense for them to not spread legal kinship to someone who isn’t making blood kin babies.

I think we can all agree that marriage in 2016 is about a bit more than how many cows belong to the clan.

Seek (34808

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I wonder why anything that a Catholic cleric says is taken seriously at all.

Their whole shtick is selling a religion that is based on a series of fantasy stories. Catholicism itself was founded on a bunch of reinterpreted fairy tales.

My rule of thumb: Any time someone who passes themselves off as a religious leader says something like this, it is out of fear and defensiveness.

elbanditoroso (33577

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