People of faith were made to feel inferior in their beliefs during
the abortion debate, Armagh’s Coadjutor Archbishop Eamon Martin has
said. Speaking last week on BBC radio ahead of his presentation at Féile an Phobail in Belfast, Dr Martin said that, throughout the debate around the Protection of Life during Pregnancy Bill, “there was an implication in the political message that faith-based messages were somehow inferior.”
Revisiting the contentious statement by Mr Kenny that “I am a Taoiseach who happens to be a Catholic but not a Catholic Taoiseach, the archbishop expressed his disappointment with the message implicit in the Taoiseach’s words.
“Right on the floor of the Dáil we get the message that you cannot be a Catholic and a politician, and carry your faith-based views at the same time as your views and responsibilities as a politician,” he said. “I think it’s somehow implied that to speak words of faith in the public square is to be out of order.”
Questioned on the subject of excommunication which had surfaced during the same debate, Archbishop Martin said “that seems to have been the headline the media wanted”. He went on to relate how, after his own interview with the media in which he laid out all aspects of the faith-based argument regarding abortion, excommunication “was the headline”.
“It was an interesting example of how we try to caricature those of faith,” he pointed out.
Pressed again on the issue of offering or denying communion now to the Taoiseach in light of the abortion Bill becoming law, Archbishop Martin was not drawn into a direct judgement on an individual.
“A person of faith cannot be someone who actively promotes the deliberate and intentional destruction of human beings,” he said, adding, “for a practising Catholic, the teaching of your Church is an important element to draw on in framing your conscience correctly.”
However, while stating “I have never in my life refused anyone for communion”, he added, mindful of the media, “the altar rails are not a place to be making public statements”.