Homophobia insults God, says archbishop

Homophobia is an insult to God and love must be shown to gay and lesbian people, according to the Archbishop of Dublin.

Speaking in the Church of St Thérèse in Mount Merrion after the diocesan Mass for the Sick last Sunday, Archbishop Diarmuid Martin also appealed for temperate language ahead of a referendum next year on same-sex marriage in Ireland.

“God never created anybody that he doesn’t love,” he said, adding that “anybody who doesn’t show love towards gay and lesbian people is insulting God. They are not just homophobic if they do that – they are actually God-phobic because God loves every one of those people.”

On the same day he told RTÉ that some in the Church may be homophobic and church teaching could be used in a “homophobic way”.

Referring to next year’s referendum, the archbishop said: “We have to learn a new way in Ireland to live with our differences and for all of us to live with respect for one another.”

However, the archbishop did not shy away from underlining that the Church has “a very clear position that marriage is something between a man and a woman” and is “not just a social construct, but part of God’s plan”.

He warned those in favour of gay marriage against presuming a person is homophobic just because they are against it.

The archbishop added that there were “many people, even prominent members of the gay community, who don’t necessarily want gay marriage. Therefore, to say that anybody who doesn’t want gay marriage is somehow against gays is not right.”

n A new group for priests in Ireland is holding its first meeting next month in Knock. The Irish Confraternity of Catholic Clergy aims to provide diocesan priests with fellowship and fraternity. Its chairman, Fr Gerard Deighan, administrator of the Latin Mass Chaplaincy in Dublin, said the group aims to “foster unity among the clergy and with the bishops, in loyalty to the Pope and his Supreme Magisterium”. The confraternity has branches in Britain, America and?Australia.