Bishop Kevin Doran at his ordination as Bishop of Elphin in the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, Sligo, last year
But enough about Joseph and Mary.
Bishop of Elphin Kevin Doran joined Chris Donoghue on Newstalk Breakfast this morning, to discuss the upcoming gay marriage referendum on May 22 and same sex parenting.
Grab a warm tay and a hot blanket.
Kevin Doran: “The term, ‘marriage equality’, which is being used a lot is misleading in the sense that what people are actually campaigning for here is not marriage because, by definition of same-sex relationship, includes some of the elements of marriage such as love, care, affection and perhaps a long-term commitment and so on. But it doesn’t include the openness to pro-creation which is one of the essential dimensions of marriage. And I’m not just saying that, from the perspective of the Catholic church or Christian tradition. I think if you look at cultures, older than any of the main religions, you find that part and parcel of the whole reason for marriage and for the reason for the State or, if you like, society getting involved in marriage was because it had to do with the important business of children.”
Chris Donoghue: “OK, well look, first of all, the referendum, we are not being asked about marrying our mothers or our sisters, the exact wording is ‘marriage may be contracted, in accordance with the law, by two persons without distinction, as to their sex’ but I just want to go back to church teaching because you have been, I think in that comment, and any gay person listening to that, will know that you’ve been friendly, you’ve been friendly and open in your comment. But what is the Catholic church’s view of gay people? Where do gay people come from or are some people just born, and they’re gay?”
Doran: “Well I don’t think the Catholic church is particularly expert on that, I think the jury is out. My own personal perspective would be, some people perhaps have a predisposition, genetically, to being gay. Perhaps, in some cases, people are gay because of contexts, circumstances related to their own experience of life as young people. One of the things I’d suggest also, from my own experience, as working as a university chaplain, would be that many young people in their late teens are confused about their sexuality, understandably and I think I’d have to say I was myself, and the thing about it is, some young people get drawn into a gay relationship because, some how or other, they don’t feel that they’re sure about being heterosexual, so they’re trying this out..”
Donoghue: “They experiment..”
Doran: “So there’s an element of that involved in it as well.”
Donoghue: “But do you accept, cause you’ve said both things there, you’ve said nurture and you’ve also said nature, that some people are born and they just are gay, just like some people are born and they just are straight.”
Doran: “I did say that I’m not an expert on this but I made the point about it is, I think the jury is out on it. The reality is not so much about the way people are born as when you look at the meaning of human sexuality, it has both an emotional dimension to it and it has a very clear physical and biological dimension to it, which is oriented towards the generation of new life.”
Donoghue: “You see, because Bishop, what I’m getting at, in listening to the church on this debate is, the previous pope, Pope Benedict, said, in 2005, “homosexuality was an intrinsic disorder”. One of your peers, Bishop Aguilar in Spain, last year, said, ‘homosexuality is a mental disorder that could be treated’. I’m just trying to get at where the church is at, is it a sin to be gay?”
Doran: “No it’s not, no. It goes back to the kind of conversation you were having with Ivan earlier on, that sometimes technical, philosophical language is not the best way to communicate what we’re talking about. There’s obviously a difference between orientation and the way people behave and in reality, you see, what the church asks of people who are homosexual, by orientation, is exactly the same as what the church asks of people who are heterosexual, that they reserve sexual relationships to marriage. Now it’s a completely different question then to say that we believed marriage is between a man and a woman and we believe that this is not something that’s not just a religious view but it’s something that is part and parcel of what cultures, for thousands of years, have recognised as being important to society.”
Donoghue: “You see the reason I was asking about what is the church’s belief on where being gay comes from because if some people are born and they are straight and others are born and they are gay, then that’s as god intended.”
Doran: “That would be to suggest that if some people who are born with Down syndrome or Spina Bifida, that that was what god intended either. I mean I think the thing about it is, I can’t see into the mind of god…”
Donoghue: “But the things you mentioned Bishop, to be fair, are conditions, they are disabilities, your sexual orientation is not a disability.”
Doran: “Well I’m not entering into that, I’m just simply saying that it would be wrong to suggest that everything that happens, happens because god intended it, I mean if that were the case, we’d be kind of talking about a very different kind of god to the kind of god that Christianity believes in.”
Later
Donoghue: “Can we just be clear? Do you accept, Bishop, that May the 22nd has nothing to do with children? May the 22nd the referendum is about redefining marriage.”
Doran: “Oh no, I don’t accept that at all and the Government has been trying to pull the wool over people’s eyes, saying this, because what’s actually happening in the referendum on May 22, if it were to be passed, would be because there’s a redefinition of marriage, it’s also a redefinition of parenthood because, while the Government is currently putting through legislation, the Children and Family Relationships Bill, which redefines parenthood, that would still only have only the force of law but it would gain the force of the constitution in a referendum that would change the meaning of marriage.”
Donoghue: “But the referendum says nothing. The wording: ‘Marriage may be contracted, in accordance with law by two persons without distinction as to their sex.”
Doran: “Yeah, but you obviously haven’t heard what I’m saying. There’s an essential relationship between marriage and the giving of life to, and caring for, children.”
Donoghue: “What I’m saying is…”
Doran: “Ad so when you change the meaning of marriage, you change the relationships of parents because if children are now, to have say, two parents who are of the same sex, that…”
Donoghue: “But children do, Bishop. As in lesbian people, lesbians, gay men they are already parents..”
Doran: “They’re not parents. You see the point about it is…”
Donoghue: “But they are, all over Ireland. They have children.”
Doran: “They may have children but that’s the difference, you see that’s the point, people who have children are not necessarily parents. This legislation that the Government is introducing, the Children and Family Relationships Bill, seems primarily focused about making it possible for people in various different relationships to have children. It’s not about ensuring that children have their parents.”
Listen back here
Pic: Donnybrook Parish
i may disagree with the bishop but he seems reasonable in his point. Donoghue was just badgering and trying to trip him up.
I’d be more keen to hear what people (in any interview) had to say than listening to an interogation session.
Agree that same sex parents are not in fact parents ?
I and he didn’t say that.
But asI said i think the bishop was reasonable but i do disagree.
Catholic bishop in catholic teaching shocker.
I heard the interview. Yer man was trolling the bishop with all the usual “thorny issue” moral quagmire situations (abortions, single mothers, sin, gays, etc.). Of course these issues are extremely rare (though the incidence is increasing in New Ireland) and these hypothetical dilemmas (FM104 style) presented to the bishop had nothing to do with the upcoming vote (and the apparent reason he was invited on the show). The presenter obviously never had to deal with such a situation – the bishop, no doubt, has has to deal with incredibly difficult decisions throughout his life as bishop and as a priest.
Nothing the bishop said was wrong – he gave a very good interview and was pleasant all the way through. If the YES side don’t like that or are looking to find offence in Catholic teaching on the family and the nature of marriage, then maybe they should just stop going to Mass (and stop having their weddings, funerals and christenings in Catholic churchs) and stop going to catholic hospitals and sending their kids to catholic schools.
It’s time liberals grew up and start taking responsibility for their flawed ideology and the social destruction. Mass-goers and the clergy can’t be expected to pick up the pieces (and pay for) things that they have been warning about for years. Reap what you sow.
Like a fly to the proverbial waiting impatiently ABM to peddle what amounts to nothing more than your usual brand of raging fanaticism revelatory a life without purpose, social dysfunction and too much time on your hands. Your pretend religion is distilled into simply an obsession (and lack of understanding borne of your own circumstances no doubt) into sexual mores. You appear indifferent to all other areas of your faith which simply allows you to engage in what are merely your internet displacement activities.
The cleric Doran is a dab hand at venting his warped brand of the Roman faith most incredulously insisting on women suffering from cancer be denied pioneering treatment simply because he objected to the necessity of them taking contraceptives while on the Mater hospital board of “ethics”. His tenure did not last very long and incurred the ire of our foremost consultant oncologists, notably Professor John Crown as well as most of the other religious members of the Board..
Needless to say, where Doran is concerned, his views on sexuality come with a large dose of hypocrisy which he may have to face sooner rather than later.
I’m not familiar with the situation you are talking about. Nor is it in any way relevant. You’re a bit like the trolling presenter, aren’t you?
I would say that Bishop Doran knows a hell of a lot more about marriage than most – he must have solemnized 1,000s over the years. And I don’t buy this silly argument of yours that pops up all the time. You don’t need to have been a jockey to be a top trainer – for most, the reason they went in to training was because they weren’t suited to jockeying.
Now do you have anything to say on the issue of permitting two men (but not three or four) to have their sexual habits blessed by The State? There is no reproductive advantage (whatsoever) to either the two individuals concerned or to society by handing out certificates of “marriage” with a little harp on them to these people.
Wait, so who is the horse? Is it the third man?
Firstly, permit me a chuckle at Broadsheet’s supreme troll referring to all others who point out a few home truths as troll? Bit rich from you ABM.
Here the story which eludes you, you poor wretch: http://www.herald.ie/news/abortion-row-priest-blocked-cancer-trials-29484085.html
You have to be a stallion to be a stud
The lovely and caring Fr Doran, with no medical background whatsoever, doing his very best to enforce that which is indefensible: http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/three-who-stopped-the-cancer-tests-25960150.html – written by David Quinn of all people.
Here is Broadsheet reminding us of the depths to which Doran, the supreme hypocrite, can sink: https://www.broadsheet.ie/2013/08/07/nothing-really-maters/
You don’t need to have been a jockey to be a top trainer – for most, the reason they went in to training was because they weren’t suited to jockeying.
You don’t need to have been a compassionate human being to be a top Bishop – for most, the reason they went in to the Church was because they weren’t suited to life around good decent people
“I would say that Bishop Doran knows a hell of a lot more about marriage than most – he must have solemnized 1,000s over the years.”
I’d say he’s an expert on conducting religious ceremonies alright, could probably do them in his sleep at this stage. Fair play to him. Doesn’t in any way make him an expert on the day to day business of marriage though. Neither does baptising children make you an expert in raising a child? Nor does giving the Last Rites make you a medical expert on illness and death? You know these things, right.
“Reproductive advantage” – so are infertile couples barred from marriage because of lack of fecundity? Are you actually denigrating adoptive parents – those who adopt due to infertility? Are they to be excluded from the sole reason you think marriage exists? In the real world ABM, people marry for a whole confluence of different reasons not solely their reproductive abilities or for the purpose of begetting children. Same-sex couples can and do raise children. Same-sex couples have been fostering with state imprimatur for a few years now. Marriage benefits all children either biological or adoptive or are you only interested in creating second class citizens for those being raised, loved and parented by same-sex couples some of whom are even their biological children, I would listen to you had you any experience of parenting or children or even a functional and loving relationship but you simply don’t and that is the real source of your ire – a life compounded by loneliness and a frenzied and warped relationship with sexuality and sexual expression. Truth hurts but it is the truth, is it not Liam?
I would listen to you had you any experience of parenting or children or even a functional and loving relationship
In fairness, I would not wish ABM on anyone. If he is a real person and not the a BS staff member trolling for comment replies, then he needs a lot of help before he could devote himself to a partner or children.
Is ABM confusing solemnized and sodomised ?
There’s nothing stopping gay people setting up their own worship hall that sodomizes “marriage”. I suspect they’d look rather silly though. Maybe you could make plenty of money at it?
You would be at the top of the queue – nothing like fantasising about sodomy to get you going ABM. Do you think this is how normal socially functional and sexually mature adults think about sex ABM?
Fake ABM has been doing the rounds today. He’s a very talented Pied Piper but surely his tactics are obvious? Judging by the off-the-richter levels of insanity by our ABM imposter, he’s fooled a lot of you into replying. Calm down – ABM is firmly on the side of marriage equality but check yourselves. It’s so easy to goad you lot with a bit of the aul crazy.
Asking a priests opinion on relationships makes about as much sense as asking my dog which broadband provider we should use.
A priest’s opinion on parenthood is of equal validity… unless it’s Eamon Casey or Len Brennan, of course
Yet they want to be addressed as “father”.
Most (maybe all) priests have had parents, usually when they were children, some into adulthood. Their views are, therefore, somewhat valid.
They believe in a holy ghost, they don’t have much to add to society.
Sure Formerly. Theists should be ruled by us rational humans. Those who don’t share our views are dangerous and must be kept quiet.
@newsjustin
I did not say they are dangerous, or should be kept quiet.
I prefer my option to the one that prevailed when I was a lad, where the men of cloth were seen as being our superiors.
Anyone who believes my life is a test of suffering to qualify for an even better life after I die shouldn’t be anywhere near power, IMO. That’s not anti-anyone, it’s self preservation.
A tweet by God (@TheTweetOfGod) that says it all: “Bigotry is a sacred union between a man and an outdated belief system.”
+1 BC
I like this and will plagarise ad-nauseam in the future :)
I’m guessing you don’t have children, do you, newsjustin?
I do.
Why do you ask?
Not valid if they have never been in a relationship. Some priests might have had pilots for parents. Would you ask them for advice on how to fly a plane?
That’s just silly Don.
A person who has been “parented” and seen other people being parented and talked to people, can legitimately offer an opinion on parenthood.
The same does not apply for being a pilot.
A person who has been “piloted” and seen other people being piloted and talked to people, can legitimately offer an opinion on pilothood.
Silly, yes but this is basically your argument.
You’re right.
My only defence is that piloting a plan and parenting a child are two entirely different things.
So is being a parent and having a parent.
Zing
Thats B@llix
The child in your piloting analogy is a third party. They are not the subject of the piloting.
They are however the subject of the parenting – which IMO would put them in a good position to have an opinion on what makes a good parent.
The plane being the subject of the piloting might have some input as to what makes a good pilot (were it not an inanimate object of course).
Ps: Did you just kick me up the arse?
I don’t know – good pilot, you survive, bad pilot you die.
It’s deliberately stupid because the whole thing is stupid. Until you’re a parent, you have no clue.
Somoene who has never or will never be a parent…. giving an opinion of proper parenting and who is allowed to be a parent? I dont think so pal
Why do you seek to exclude people from the debate? Surely parenthood and family is as near to a universal human issue as anything. Why seek to exclude anyone from the debate because they haven’t experienced one part of it. That’s just blinkering oneself.
The last thing we have to worry about in Ireland is whether or not the opinions of priests and bishops with regard to same-sex marriage will be given enough media attention.
Theyve had a few hundred years to have their say and it only got us pain and suffering.
Ah, I see. Some vague sense of grievance legitimises a blinkered outlook and the dismissal of other points of view.
If the church is so forward thinking then why are they denying people the right to marry their partner and raise children?
Where did I say the church was “forward thinking”? What does that even mean?
“Some vague sense of grievance”
So you think that we should just let go of the fact that the CC committed a few incy wincy little mistakes in the past?
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
Justins comments are usually argumentative nonsense followed by “explain your previous comment so i can make fun of it again”
SNORE
they can contribute to the debate, but they shouldn’t expect their opinions to carry as much weight.
Would you exclude from a debate about, say, the best Godfather movie somebody who hadn’t seen any of them? Possibly not. You’re a mannerly chap. Would you honestly take seriously any of their opinions on the subject though?
I did not care for the Godfather.
Seriously though, you’re working in binary. Not seeing any Godfather film clearly makes it almost impossible to have an opinion on the subject, but being a person who has not had children does not rule one out of a discussion on parenthood and the family….given that we all have parents, we all come from families and we all see families in operation.
I hate to bring it up, but the argument is a bit like saying men can’t possibly have a say in the abortion debate because they have no womb. Silly, binary nonsense.
Hey! That’s not what someone who’d really seen The Godfather would say.
And I didn’t say that he was, or should be exluded from the debate; I’m saying that his insights into family life and so forth won’t be,and shouldn’t be, given as much weight as the insights of people who *have* family life/relationships/kids.
that’s all.
I love The Money Pit.
Ha! Classic.
Celibate pointy-hatted male in ill-informed parenting opinion shocker.
He can fupp right off.
I don’t tell his braindead drones how to hand over their free will, autonomy, and analytical thought.
Get out and vote, people.
How many marriages have you solemnized? How many couples have you advised? How many confessions have you heard? How many sermons have you given? Are you answerable for your thoughts, words and actions 24/7/365?, or just between 9 and 5, Monday to Friday?
In ABM’s head or in reality – huge difference in figures. In his head, he might have lost count. In reality, ABM has yet to start counting.
Yeah, of course.
But only because your dog has such a ironclad grip on the broadband preferences of millions of people.
Listened to it and I believed Doran to be very unconfident in his responses. Plus he rallied on about the ‘family’ being the foundation of society and the the mother/father marriage to be the ideal for a good and nurturing society for children. That excludes a lot of good people (unmarried, childless, gay couples etc.) and it’s elevating a simplified, fantasy society that clergies continue to extoll about but just proves they’re nowhere near the reality of human relationships.
Are you somehow suggesting that someone who lives his life according to a work of fiction about a space wizard & his zombie son is out of touch with reality?!
Boo, sir/madam, BOOOO!!!
LOL Double BOO
How COULD you Spag?
Well lthat’s a very weird interview, almost surreal. Is he asking us to accept that people being born with spina bifida or down’s syndrome are contrary to god’s design? Or does he not know what he’s saying? Does that mean he’s in favour of abortion where the foetus has a condition contrary to god’s design (whatever that means)?
Hmmm, it appears that the man in the ivory tall turban hat, carrying the bejewelled stick who presides over the land of ‘Elphin’ is somewhat out of touch with reality.
Or that people who dont have kids aren’t a proper marriage?
a) Why did O’ Donoghue bring up “marrying our mothers or our sisters” at the start of the interview? Seemed to come out of nowhere.
b) I believe there was an additional bit at the end of this transcript (i.e. said but not transcribed) where the Bishop clarifies his point about people who have children but are not parents. His point seems to be that a child has a mother and a father – and that just being in a relationship with a child’s mother or father does not make one a parent. Of course, Newstalk chose to go with the simplistic and hilarious “Gay parents of children are not parents” tack. http://www.newstalk.com/Bishop-of-Elphin-Kevin-Doran-gay-marriage-Newstalk-Breakfast-same-sex-marriage
“His point seems to be that a child has a mother and a father – and that just being in a relationship with a child’s mother or father does not make one a parent.”
This is a very very stupid point.
So any non-parent in a relationship with any parent automatically becomes a parent of their child. Bit extreme, no?
Not what I said
OK. So care to expand on why you feel the point made above is “a very very stupid point”?
I think you can work that out
I’m very stupid myself, can you please explain it for me?
Explain how the Bishop is more than a little out of touch with reality? Nah, no offence but its clear what you think and I can’t be bothered having a circular argument tbh
I’m not talking about the bishop being out of touch. You responded to a particular quote saying that it was a “very very stupid point”. And now you’re refusing to say why you think it’s a stupid point. It need not be a circular argument at all. I was just wondering why you think it’s a stupid point. Did you even consider the point before you typed?
The Bishop being out of touch is my point. You sure do seem a bit stupid.
Yet you addressed the quote in particular and said “This is a very very stupid point”. Nothing about the bishop being out of touch until much later, when asked to expand.
I’m very stupid. But at least I don’t try to backtrack on what I’ve said after I’ve been caught out and asked for an explanation.
“I’m very stupid.”
You see Justin, everything you say after this comment is null and void.
@news That’s not what backtracking or being caught out mean
I was very stupid is forgetting that talking to you is a futile exercise
Lads/Ladies ye are great craic.
All I asked for was a straight answer. Why did Don say that a particular statement was “very very stupid.” And he’s done everything except explain why.
Except the bit where I did. But way you go
You didn’t Don.
“Why did O’ Donoghue bring up “marrying our mothers or our sisters” at the start of the interview? Seemed to come out of nowhere”
he didn’t, the bishop did.
Yes, I heard the interview and the Bishop brought ‘marrying mothers and sisters’ first. O’Donohue was just responding.
Thanks Vote and Sue for clarifying. I missed the start of the interview. The transcript (obviously) only includes part.
He didn’t. The Bishop mentioned the mothers and sisters first. The start of the transcript isn’t the start of the real interview.
So who was the person from the Marriage Equality campaign arguing the yes side?
Or is the whole balance crap only for one side??
In any event, the idea of a celibate man arrogantly telling the nation what is and is not a family in 2015 is infuriating.
Donoghue was taking the Yes side. You’re entirely misunderstanding the nature of debate and the BAI’s recent decisions if you believe a person from “each side” of a debate must be present.
What the BAI objects to – rightly – is someone giving their opinions on a live political debate such as this (especially associated with a referendum) where the presenter effectively acts as cheerleader and doesn’t promote balanced debate.
There was someone from the pro side on last week from what I can vaguely remember.
Man who wears silly hats wears silly hat shocker
Worse still, he looks very smug about having a silly hat.
“I’ve got my hat and that’s all (t)hat matters”
It’s not silly at all, it makes him look taller and therefore more authoritative. The bishops hat is the tallest hat in the world. Abe Lincoln’s chimney hat, the top hat, the British bobby’s helmet, the Swiss Guards helmet were all designed with that in mind, to confer authority so that plebs like you and I would know when to bow down.
You’re just being silly now
I’d like to be pregnant one time just so I can wee in a bobby’s hat
There is that law isn’t there. Pity it doesn’t apply to a bishops hat – it would be a deadly go-girl type of urination device for women.
I worked with a guy on building sites in NYC once who advised me that if I ever was being unreasonably harassed by cops for loitering in the street (in his case probably while drunk ;) – then to tell them you were taking a poo. He claimed the cops can not arrest you for taking a poo in the street and it’s an old law, because it’s not thought reasonable to force people to have to poo indoors whereas it’s reasonable to think someone can hold their wee in. No poo.
Like a massive She-Pee!
Hey lady, won’t you be my dog ,and I’ll be your tree,and you can pee on me.
So romantic
‘insert’ crude comment here
Religious folks, especially Catholics, are just hilarious.
Bish says “church asks of people who are homosexual, by orientation, is exactly the same as what the church asks of people who are heterosexual, that they reserve sexual relationships to marriage.”
And then goes on to say gays shouldn’t be allowed marry!
Have you gays now got that? The Catholic church loves you, you can shag yourselves silly but only in the context of a marriage which the Catholic church is opposed to if you’re gay.
We have absolutely no problem with gay people as long as they, you know, don’t do gay things.
Like live together, wear frocks, kiss rings, and not have sex with women
You mean, like Priests….
I think that was the joke…..
Redefining ‘marriage’ is wrong apparently. But, it seems redefining ‘parent’ is completely acceptable.
His point is that living in the same house as child, or being in a relationship with one of the child’s parents does not, automatically, a parent make. That each child has a mother and a father. Hardly redefining.
Exactly. It must be psychologically very damaging for a child to have to ask his “parents” if they know anything of his gestation inside a poverty-stricken Indian slave woman. Now would be a good time to invest in the psychology business.
You’d keep a whole department of shrinks in clover
Except those are very rare cases and not an option available to most prospective adoptive Irish parents. Gay or straight.
What does “people who have children are not necessarily parents” mean? That some people don’t have anything to do with their kids? That you’re not a real parent unless you are married? Was he talking about sperm donors? What was his point?
His point is that living in the same house as child, or being in a relationship with one of the child’s parents does not, automatically, a parent make. That each child has a mother and a father. Hardly redefining.
So all adopted kids are parentless ?
No. They have a biological mother and father (who may be absent or deceased). They (hopefully) also have legal guardians or adoptive parents.
Both the biological parents and adoptive parents are real parents. But some guy who’s in a relationship with one of the adoptive parents is not automatically a parent.
I get what you’re saying about adoptive/step parents – there’s been some paperwork to formalise it, but surely if you ‘have children’ you are a parent? Or is he talking in the strictly legal sense, as in two women who are in a relationship and one of them has a child, only the mother is a parent? That seems harsh.
So what about a gay couple who adopt a child? Or who use a sperm donor/surrogate? Presumably they must be considered parents too using this ‘logic’?
@Stewart. I think that’s exactly what he’s saying.
It may be harsh, depending on the depth of the relationship between the two women. I don’t think it’s controversial to say that a person in a relationship with a person who is a parent, does not automatically become a second parent.
@sirtuffy As you know, gay couples can’t presently adopt a child. But if they could, and they did, then yes, they would be the child’s parents.
Here’s a case (yes, the Daily Mail, but the facts aren’t in dispute) of a single son who used his sperm and a donor egg to have a baby, with his mother acting as surrogate (and doing the bulk of the child-care it would seem):
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2985773/Sorry-man-DOESN-T-right-dad-s-deeply-emotive-subject-AMANDA-PLATELL-knows-agony-childless-gives-personal-view.html
@newsjustin And what about sperm donor/surrogate? I know plenty of real-life examples of this in Ireland already
@sirtuffy
Re surrogate/sperm donors. In these cases there could well be more than 3 parents. e.g. a sperm donor father and then a mother and her partner. Similar in case of a donor egg, etc. It all depends on the genetic material in my book. Although, under current law, a surrogate mother is also a parent (even if she does not use her own egg).
I think it means people like adopted parents (any gender) aren’t really parents, because biological parents are the only parents that qualify.
Which is absolute bullsh*t – the parent is the one who parents – loves, nurtures and protects – the child. It takes a warped and cold mind to say different.
I don’t think he’s saying that either because the Catholic church does regard adoptive couples as parents when they bring their child for Communion or Confirmation. Only when the adoptive couple is heterosexual, mind.
Whatever happened to ABM?
I think he became the Bishop of Elphin :-)
This was the guy, Dustan Lance Black, who was on Newstalk last week on the other side of debate. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1m-ELWr8dRo&fb_action_ids=10153578421152119&fb_action_types=og.shares
I know where I stand on this debate and feel very strongly about it. I feel sorry for people who do not have a strong opinion and may be unsure of what is the right thing for them to vote for. I feel that if they are religious people they will look to their church for guidance and will be forced to make a decision that they don’t really agree with – but feel like they have to vote that way because their church has put across their stance on it. They will be taken advantage of and used for their vote.
Doesn’t the Catholic church regard heterosexual couples who adopt, as “parents” of the adopted child? I know that’s how such adoptive couples are treated when, say, they bring their child for Communion or Confirmation.
If such heterosexual couples are regarded as “parents” by the Catholic church, then what is the issue with gay couples being so defined also?
The whole gay thing, I’d imagine.
Genitals. It’s always about genitals.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_aZPmlLKbA8
Kevin Doran needs to address the performance of the Catholic Church
which he speaks for and belongs to in respect of their performance in
relation to the churches position of “Loco Parentas” to children that were
in the care of Catholic Institutions and that were abused.
Next there is Jesus, were told conceived to Mary by immaculate conception
by a being from outside the Earth, who was a virgin and lived with partner
Joseph and had to enjoy a relationship with each other, what was the
extent to this relationship sexually, Kevin Doran might enlighten us.
Would Joseph be considered a parent? what with having raised and supported the child.
This priest is spouting boll*x.
Foster parents
Adoptive parents
A new partner in a family who takes on the role of an absent or deceased parent
IVF parents where another doners eggs or sperm is used
Parents who use surrogate Mothers
All different types of PARENTS. All of them in their own way are care-givers, protectors, taxi-drivers, love-givers, teachers of manners, parents evening attenders, worrywarts, homework checkers, bill payers, food providers and monster-hug-givers to some degree.
Priests
Bishops
Archbish.s
Cardinals
Primates
Popes …
NOT parents. NOT even protecters of innocent children. An outdated instition of old men in dresses trying to hold on to some relevancy in the modern inclusive world who are NOT fit to pronounce on what constities a family.
+1, nice one Casey.
+1
dont forget poo cleaners! like to see a cardinal not lose the head when he gets runny poop on his nice clean dress
Jimmy, I did not forget the nappies, laundry, the cleaning, the cooking, the shopping….. (or the poo / wee / runny stuff that is neither one nor the other) …. or all the other stuff that parents do.
It is just that I could list things that parents do and still be here tomorrow finishing the list …..
bingo casey but hey, we wouldnt want to upset a celibate man in a dress now would we.
It’s only ever gay people who are the ones who are obsessed about clerical garb. To think of community leaders in such a sexually explicit (and perverted) way is demonstrative of their strange sexual motivation in life. When I see a priest saying Mass, I want to be a better person. When a homosexual sees a priest, he gets excited and wonders if he’s an anal virgin. Frankly, I cannot understand it all.
frankly abm, i think you understand it far more than you let on.
Hear, hear !
Actually, moral authority, social order and spiritual awareness is needed now more than ever in the history of humanity. Billions starve, billions are in corporate servitude and the 21st century is on course to be even more bloody than the record set in the 20th – meanwhile a decadent few worry about how they can get their sexual habits blessed by The State and how they can silence those who remind them that God does not approve.
Also, your continuum is both imprecise and incomplete. Why did you omit Deacons?
Finally, “parent” (in its biological sense) cannot be used to describe the both daddies when only one daddy created life inside a surrogate mother. The child’s parents are the mother and the father.
I guess you’ll need to think of ways to redefine “parent” now like the way you’re trying to redefine “marriage”? Would it not just be easier to create a new word? (don’t gender theorists have a “gender neutral” lexicon somewhere that you can contribute to?) But no, you don’t want new words, you want to appropriate words (and buildings and assets and ideas and titles) and corrupt them with your own toxic ideology. Why? Because you are unable to create anything of your own, are afraid to admit that your ideology is built on quick sand and are afraid to even attempt to let your anti-intellectual clap-trap stand on its own two feet for fear it will fall flat on its face. Instead, you rely on destruction and appropriation – not creation and nurturing.
“21st century is on course to be even more bloody than the record set in the 20th”
What, the 20th century with 2 world wars in it? What the 21st century, the most peaceful time ever?
ABM, you are loltastic
Makes the Crusades (5,000 odd people dead per year) look like a bun fight.
What about the Black Death (bubonic plague) which killed off 50% of Europe’s and an undetermined number of other continents’ populations. What century was that in again?
Oh stop it with your historical facts Soundings!
ABM, lowest estimate for the Crusades is 1 million
It’s always the “end of times, repent now before it’s too late” mumbo jumbo with these folks.
Not good for business to know we’ve never had it so good, that world destruction isn’t nigh and that we’re more knowledgeable and spiritual (in the true sense of the word) than ever before.
I know right? And its all the fault of those pesky decadent gays according to spud-face up there
Caring and nurturing are values beyond your world-experience ABM. For years now, the only contribution you have made to debates in relation to your cause celebres have been invective and personal bitterness vaunting your own celibate state while reserving the right to denigrate all and sundry with a particular penchant for gay people. It may be a wild stab in the dark but your fixation with homosexuality, solely male homosexuality, is revelatory of your own sexual dysfunction and desire to rationale a dissolute life which is reduced to trolling both on here and twitter. You’ll excuse me for believing your Chicken Licken end-of-the-world prophesising and hatred of rationale and intellectually coherent debate is nothing more than rabid fanaticism and a warped understanding of the world and human personality. What have you created beyond obsessing about issues of which you know very little.
What the actual fupp are you on? Seriously, it must be great stuff. How do you know God does not approve? Did he talk to you through your tin foil hat again? Even the Bish in this interview was modest enough to say he could not see into the mind of yer man in the clouds.
If there is a Father, Son and Holy Spook, prove to me that they do not want parenting to take all the wonderful and varied shapes and forms it takes now. Prove to me that your God thinks there should be only one type of parent. Prove to me that unconditional and nurturing love for a child can harm that child except when it comes from “approved” parent-types.
Prove it. Prove it. Prove it. Prove it. Prove it. Prove it. Prove it. Prove it. Prove it. Prove it. Prove it. Prove it. Prove it. Prove it. Prove it. Prove it. Prove it. Prove it. Prove it. Prove it. Prove it. Prove it. Prove it. Prove it. Prove it. Prove it. Prove it. Prove it. Prove it. Prove it. Prove it. Prove it. Prove it. Prove it. Prove it. Prove it. Prove it. Prove it. Prove it. Prove it. Prove it. Prove it. Prove it. Prove it.
Prove it. Prove it. Prove it. Prove it. Prove it. Prove it. Prove it. Prove it. Prove it. Prove it. Prove it.
(I like to Prove it. Prove it.)
If you want to talk about the existence of God, there are plenty of international and Irish discussion forums for you to engage on. This is really well trodden ground. You’re not going to get the answers you seek here.
If there is a Father, Son and Holy Spook, prove to me that they do not want parenting to take all the wonderful and varied shapes and forms it takes now. Prove to me that your God thinks there should be only one type of parent. Prove to me that unconditional and nurturing love for a child can harm that child except when it comes from “approved” parent-types.
Of course the irony being that ABM knows nothing of actually parenting or even the joy of a loving relationship. These, by his own admission on here, continue to elude this sexually and socially dysfunctional male obsessing about sexuality, an issue which he himself cannot even grapple with beyond slurs and fantatising in a most frenzied and rabid manner about bottom sex. Funny how he forgets his hilariously unhinged and warped yet personally tragic previous posts in relation to which ABM suffers from the most acute form of selective amnesia. One would laugh were he not so sad.
Why is the 21st Century to be bloodier than the 20th and how do you intend to measure this over the next 85 years?
Some claim.
Parent already has a definition that will include gay families in that parent is defined as….
Oxford English Dictionary –
” A person’s father or mother:
‘the parents of the bride’
‘his adoptive parents’ ”
Parent does not mean strictly mother and father.
“Finally, “parent” (in its biological sense) cannot be used to describe the both daddies when only one daddy created life inside a surrogate mother. The child’s parents are the mother and the father.”
So ‘parent’ cannot be used to describe EITHER party of a couple who’ve adopted a child, regardless of gender because neither had a role in conception?
Fair enough, it’s a bit of a barmy, minority view likely to elicit either laughter or anger if said to a adopted child, but if you think only biological parents qualify as parents, as opposed to the people who actually, exclusively PARENT the child, that’s your call :/
You’re the one redefining ‘parent’ though – suggesting that the people who raise a child are not it’s parents is the controversial viewpoint here.
Dear ABM,
No need to redefine the word parent, it’s already adequately defined in the Oxford English Dictionary:
‘a. A person who is one of the progenitors of a child; a father or mother. Also, in extended use: a woman or man who takes on parental responsibilities towards a child, e.g. a stepmother, an adoptive father…
c. A person who has the position or role of a parent; one who exercises the functions of a parent; a protector, guardian. Formerly also occas.: †a father- or mother-in-law (obs.).’
Likewise marriage:
‘The condition of being a husband or wife; the relation between persons married to each other; matrimony.
The term is now sometimes used with reference to long-term relationships between partners of the same sex (see gay marriage n. at gay adj., adv., and n. Special uses 2b).’
Have a nice day.
Casey, now, in fairness, Bishop Casey and Fr Michael Cleary would probably disagree with you.
Which means what, that the CC is an outdated instition of old men in dresses trying to hold on to some relevancy in the modern inclusive world who are NOT fit to pronounce on what constities a family. An outdated instition that some within it do not see the point of following its pointless rules so they go and have relationships and become parents. Remember these are only the ones we know about. (They sinned twice by getting caught)
To be fair, the CC has 1.2 billion followers worldwide, more than ever before. It has more priests than ever before. The Irish CC sees approx. 1.5 million people attending weekly services….no other institution…not even the Late Late Show speaks to more people and has them turn out. So whatever else you call it, the CC is not outdated. It’s part of the debate whether one likes it or not.
Census 2011 indicated just 18% of people (that’s 810,000) regularly attended church. That’s around the proportion of the population that is expected to vote “no” in May. In the 1980s, it was estimated 90% of the population attended church weekly.
So, not outdated at all, but certainly in steep decline and waning influence.
The 2011 Irish census (thankfully) did not ask people about their mass attendance. I don’t know where you got that idea, but you’re very, very wrong.
+1 , nicely put.
Where is that old BS post that had a snippet of a religion school book that said that god loved babies from married parents better? The others were not too far off animals as far as the church was concerned. I wonder where is all that ‘honesty’ gone?
Found a copy of the picture: http://www.humorsharing.com/media/images/1202/i_2438_demotivations-007.jpg
Marriage was always about kids he says…. that’s why in the very, very old days, pre-Bible, pre-Old Testament, very old times, kings and chiefs and queens would sometimes murder some of their kids so their preferred one would inherit the chiefdom / kingdom.
They’d not just kill off their own from within marriage but also any born outside of marriage so they wouldn’t challenge the preferred next in line.
Nothing to do with property at all then.
Just the kids.
Well, Mr Bishop Doran, in the words of Farmer Arthur H. Hoggett, “That’ll do pig, that’ll do”…. or simply, you’re talking sh*te.
Dear Mr. Bishop: Marriage is not, and never was, property of the church.
Some people may choose to submit their marriage to your ‘rules of engagement’, and that is between you and these people. As for my relationship with my partner, it is not of your f-ing business.
So what if people who have children aren’t biological parents? We’ve been allowing people who aren’t biological parents to marry and adopt children for years. Likewise, we’ve been allowing people who can’t have or don’t want to have children to marry since the institution of marriage first came into being.
Regardless of the emotive caterwaul spewed from the mouths of the morally outraged brigade this debate is about allowing two people of the same gender to be recognised as a married couple and about recognising that our concept of family is evolving.
Every time this hackneyed anti-equality sentiment is trotted out I can’t help but think of Helen Lovejoy shouting ‘won’t somebody think of the children!’
Not knowing who your parents are is a tragedy, not something that should be legislated for. The mother’s family, and failing that, wider society, has a duty to synthesize the family for the innocent child. Two men/ two women unions (but not three/four?) are not a good synthesis because they inherently deny the child of a mother or a father figure. There is also a risk that the social experiment could go wrong and the additional risk of infidelity (widespread among gay people). This is even more so when we consider that there’s waiting list of suitable married couples who are naturally open, but physically incapable of having their own children.
Haha! -oh you!
Infidelity is widespread among gay people. LOL – that revelatory more of your own frenzied obsessions, wishful thinking and warped view of sexuality and sexual expression. Lets face it – the real source of your ire – a life blighted by loneliness and never being able to fully understand or appreciate the joys of a functional and healthy relationship with another. No person with experience of this speaks of sex and sexuality in the context of a relationship in the way in which you have done on here for years. You are simply that which you rail against – a social and sexual dysfunctional amplified by personal bitterness and never being able to emulate that which you purport to support.
One day you’ll have to face your demons ABM…
“Not knowing who your parents are is a tragedy, not something that should be legislated for.”
Really? So no legislation for orphans?
They may be crack-addled criminal junkies, but they’re YOUR crack-addled criminal junkies.
Does The State legislate to make children orphans? You want the State to allow two men to head off on a “holiday” to India, pay an impoverished baby incubator and then demand The State provide this child with an Irish passport. You want a legal framework created that facilitates the child to be torn from its natural mother and want to be able to walk away from absolutely all responsibilities towards the baby incubator. In fact, you want to “forget” about her and ban her from ever having contact ever again (preferably this would be legally enshrined too).
Same-sex couples cannot avail of surrogacy in India you moron.
Your point “Not knowing who your parents are is a tragedy, not something that should be legislated for. ”
My point – the state legislates for a process for orphans to be cared for in what can be tragic circumstances. I assume you are against this?
And how exactly is this different from an opposite sex couple engaging in surrogacy services with the same result – only, one generally the father, has a biological link to the child.
Quit the propaganda and febrile ideology ABM.
No they dont
Ah, at first I thought you were a normal run of the mill bigot; now I see you’re actually just a lunatic (or possibly Jim Corr).
As you were, Absolutely Bloody Mental
Haha deadly trolling
The saddest part of this, for me, is that despite education, experience and common sense there are still enough people in Ireland who would pay attention to this man’s out-dated nonsense that it was felt necessary to ask him for an opinion.
“what the church asks of people who are homosexual, by orientation, is exactly the same as what the church asks of people who are heterosexual, that they reserve sexual relationships to marriage”
– but they also want homosexuals to not marry so they are asking homosexuals to be celibate.
– in fact when I was a teenager in the late 1980’s and I looked up homosexuality in the Catholic Catechism – it very clearly states that having homosexual feelings is a vocation to the religious life.
“I can’t see into the mind of god”
– Well then you have no idea what you’re talking about so shut up.
Anyone talking about god doesn’t know what they’re talking about because nobody knows anything about god.
I don’t think we should be taking parental advice from an aged,unmarried virgin in a frock
I’m somewhat amused by the bigots on this who use the term ‘sodomy’ with great abandon and talk about ‘parenting’. Anyone who has read the story of Lot (aka the story of Soddom and Gamorrah) in it’s entirety will have read how according to the story, Lot (the most moral man in the 5 towns, and only man worth saving from destruction ) offered his daughters to a crowd of rapists in appeasement so they wouldn’t bother the angels in his house (poor fragile things).
After his wife gets turned into a pillar of salt for the unforgivable crime of looking back as her former home is destroyed by fire, how does Lot’s lineage continue?
Apparently his daughters took turns getting him drunk and shagging him until they were both pregnant – worried that he wouldn’t find another woman to impregnate (although there were other towns around). -worth pointing out, we’re not told who who wrote this bit down – sounds like a very dodgy attempt to justify incest.
What fantastic family values the bible doth teach… eh?