Sir, – Fr Joseph O'Leary (January 5th) states that "the pope did not criticise gay marriage legislation when in the US".
During his first address at the White House on September 23rd last, Pope Francis said, “I will also travel to Philadelphia for the Eighth World Meeting of Families, to celebrate and support the institutions of marriage and the family at this, a critical moment in the history of our civilisation”.
On the following day, in the course of his address to the joint session of the US Congress, Pope Francis said, “I cannot hide my concern for the family, which is threatened, perhaps as never before, from within and without. Fundamental relationships are being called into question, as is the very basis of marriage and the family.”
In his speech to the American bishops at St Charles Borromeo Seminary in Philadelphia on September 27th, the final day of his visit, he said “Until recently, we lived in a social context where the similarities between the civil institution of marriage and the Christian sacrament were considerable and shared. The two were interrelated and mutually supportive. This is no longer the case.”
Having been at the World Meeting of Families in Philadelphia, there are, I believe, two certainties about the next meeting in Dublin in 2018: everyone will be invited to participate, and Christian teaching on the nature of marriage, which is no longer supported by our civil law, will be compellingly presented.
This may amount to a “parade of hollow ideology” for Fr Joseph O’Leary but, as a married man and father, I found the Philadelphia meeting to be anything other than hollow or a parade.
It was a profound expression of how the love of God is uniquely revealed through relationships between children, parents and grandparents, all of which are dependent on the procreative union of man and woman, being the unchanging reality which the Christian and natural understanding of marriage seeks to protect. – Yours, etc,
PATRICK TREACY,
Stoneyford,
Co Kilkenny.