Marriage vote shows need for Church to ‘support Catholic politicians’

A leading priest-theologian has said the Church needs to work harder to support and form the consciences of Catholic politicians.

Commenting in the aftermath of this week’s same-sex marriage vote in Stormont, Fr Niall Coll, who lectures at St Mary’s College, Belfast, told The Irish Catholic that “Catholicism in the past was so social and cultural that most views were uncontested”.

“There was a consensus in society on issues of personal morality, and as that tide ebbs the great challenge is to help inform politicians who work out of a personal faith”.

“The need for that has been growing,” he stressed, pointing out that many in the North fit this description as “they are a Christian people”, but that helping politicians to act from informed consciences is “the big challenge”.

“If it’s true that in the past the Church didn’t want people to do other than what they were told, now it urgently needs people to think and weigh up matters for themselves,” he said. 

“Often it seems in Ireland that there’s space for only one orthodoxy at a time – and now it’s a secular one.”

Fifty three MLAs voted to urge the Northern Executive “to table legislation to allow for same-sex marriage”, with 52 MLAs opposing the motion and one abstaining. This was the first time in five attempts that a majority of MLAs has backed such a measure, but the Democratic Unionist Party vetoed the decision by lodging a petition of concern. 

Under the terms of 1998’s Good Friday Agreement, “a significant minority” of MLAs can lodge petitions of concern to designate key decisions as requiring cross-community support, including at least 40% of voting nationalist MLAs and at least 40% of voting unionist MLAs.  Although 41 nationalists supported the joint Sinn Féin-SDLP proposal, it was backed by just four unionists.

Same-sex marriage advocates have hailed the result as a symbolic victory, but Fr Coll pointed out that few serious commentators expect Stormont to redefine marriage as understood in Northern Ireland. “In the North the expectation among most people who are politically literate is that the pathway for same-sex marriage is more likely to be achieved through the courts,” he said, “so a lot of what’s happening in Stormont is beside the point.”