McAleese mocks family views of celibate men

The former president of Ireland, Mary McAleese, has claimed that it is “completely bonkers” for celibate men to advise the Pope about family life, writes Sarah Mac Donald.

In a criticism on the forthcoming synod on the family, Ms McAleese said there was “something profoundly wrong and skewed” about asking “150 male celibates” to review the Church’s pastoral work in this area.

“The very idea of 150 people who have decided they are not going to have any children, not going to have families, not going to be fathers and not going to be spouses ... but they are going to advise the Pope on family life; it is completely bonkers,” she said in a public discussion with Professor Conor Gearty of the London School of Economics reported by The Irish Times at University College, Dublin.

The former head of state said she had responded to the Vatican’s questionnaire on the family with the question: “How many of the men who will gather to advise you as Pope on the family have ever changed a baby’s nappy?”