Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin
Patsy McGarry, in the Irish Times, reports:
Speaking at a Mass in Lucan Co Dublin marking the 10th anniversary of suicide support organisation Pieta House, [Archbishop Diarmuid Martin] said it would not be right not to accept the church’s role in fomenting such taboos.
“It would not be honest for me to stand here this afternoon and not recognise that the Church in Ireland and farther afield contributed greatly to the level of taboo which surrounded suicide,” he said.
He continued that “a Church which loses the sense of the priority of mercy gets trapped in a priority of rules, and loses the meaning of those rules. The preaching of Jesus was constantly directed against those who imposed burdens on others and never lifted a hand to help.
“That rigidity and hypocrisy remains always a temptation. It will not be combated simply by homilies and critique, no matter how important they are.”
Church ‘contributed greatly’ to taboos on suicide – Martin (Irish Times)
Sam Boal/Rollingnews.ie
people who committed suicide were buried in ‘unconsecrated ground’ along with the dead babies…the church used to preach they all went to ‘Limbo’
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limbo
Only the babbies went to Limbo, no?
Suicide victims were guilty of a mortal sin & potentially could go to hell. The thinking was that this wasn’t definite since the victim ‘may not have given full consent of the will.’
Taboo or no taboo, I thought this was still the Church’s position, even if Martin frames it in a more empathetic manner? Happy to be corrected.
a day late, and a dollar short.
but at least it’s something.
It almost sounds like religious rules are made by men and so can’t really be used as a special defence for being a bigoted See You Next Tuesday.
CC is a cult in all but name
With a cult the leader is alive, with religion the leader is dead.
I wonder what does that mean to pastafarianism. It should be up there with the main religions in my view.
I’m sure DQ will “correct” Martin at some stage very soon and tell us what he meant to say.
So it’s now OK to kill yourself?
He had a sudden moment of clarity when Rooney scored yesterday.
Boom!
sorry according to the minister for justice the last taboo is miscarriage…
I dislike the RCC institution. This fella makes an effort.
Better late than never, at least this is progress on the Church’s part
Theory: ArchBishop Martin | ABM?
It has been wondered about before but meeehhh…. who really cares?
Martin seems like a decent enough fellow; I imagine that it is difficult at times for him to defend things that are oftentimes indefensible.
Nah, ABM often clashes with the Catholic Church’s official line and he often ignores or rallies against what his leader El Papa says. He’s a bit more closely aligned to fundamentalist Christian groups like IONA and YD, who also criticise the RCC on many issues, than he is to the official RCC line.
if taboos prevent people from harming themselves is it a bad thing?
This idea that removing the taboo will solve the problem is suspect