NEWTON'S OPTIC: Dozens of clergymen's children attended my secondary school and they all seemed extremely well-adjusted. Some of the boys tried a little too hard to compensate for their dad's naff job and some of the girls were a little too fond of the attention. But by and large they were a likeable bunch who could talk to anyone, organise anything and play a surprising range of tunes on the acoustic guitar, writes Newton Emerson
These children came from a wide variety of social backgrounds, from Church of Ireland right the way down to Presbyterian. But what they all had in common was that their parents were married. Also, whether they played the pipe organ or the electric organ, their parents had different sexual organs. This can hardly have been a coincidence.
The contrast with the children of Catholic priests is stark and instructive. There were no priests' children at my secondary school as integrated education is a sin. Nevertheless, stories of their unhappy fate did filter back to us.
How well-adjusted could these unfortunate innocents have been as they were disowned by their fathers, exiled from their homes and furtively adopted by decommissioned nuns?
It seems clear that the wilful refusal of their parents to marry lies at the heart of these family breakdowns.
Things were different before the Catholic Church turned its back on marriage. Cardinal Brady's own bishopric of Armagh passed from father to son 15 times during the Middle Ages and from husband to wife at least once. There could be no clearer illustration of the stability of married life.
But in the late 11th century, under the influence of supposedly "modern" Norman attitudes, the Irish church spurned centuries of social custom in favour of more fashionable continental lifestyles.
Celibacy, cohabitation and same-sex communal living became the norm as the hierarchy failed to stand up for traditional values.
Pope Gregory VII told priests to "escape from the clutches of their wives". Pope Urban II ordered priests' wives to be sold into slavery and their children to be abandoned.
In his speech last week, Cardinal Brady said: "When people become less concerned with what God has to say generally, or when the popularity of an idea replaces objective human values as the basis of morality, commitment to marriage as the basis of the family also diminishes."
What God has to say, in Timothy 3:2-4, is: "A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife . . . having his children in subjection with all gravity."
What God has to say generally, in Hebrews 13:4, is: "Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge."
It is sobering to consider how many families have broken down because of the popular idea that married priests should be judged alongside whoremongers and adulterers. But now, thanks to Cardinal Brady's support for marriage as the basis of morality, we can finally dream of the day when little Protestant clergymen's children and little Catholic clergymen's children both walk to school with their heads held high.
As long as they don't walk to the same school, obviously. That would diminish objective human values.