Cardinal’s comments will not help the Church

His Eminence Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Secretary of State at the Holy See declared that the outcome of the marriage referendum is ‘a defeat for humanity’ — after the votes were cast, as if he were administering a balming poultice.

Was an opaque curtain drawn back from the windows of his spacious darkened chamber sufficiently far to stir the delicacy of his conscience? There wasn’t a whimper out of the Holy See before the votes were cast and to the great mass of Irish Catholics this cardinal is an anonymous stranger about whom they know little.

Many dedicated Irish Catholics regard the failure of the Holy See to cooperate with the Commissions’ of Inquiry that led to the findings of the Ryan Report and the two Murphy Reports into the Dublin archdiocese and the Cloyne diocese, as a more devastating defeat for humanity.

If the Holy See regard humanity as an issue of vital concern this would have been abundantly demonstrated by the Secretary of State with a timely and helpful response to these inquiries.

By perfunctorily ignoring them the Holy See disregarded the Irish public and State.

The people will likely react to the Cardinal’s declaration as they would to the tentative flicker from a dying volcano.

Myles Duffy

Glenageary

Co Dublin