THE Catholic Bishop of Killaloe, Dr Willie Walsh, has been criticised for showing an "almost naive innocence" in his highly publicised comments about inter church marriages.
An editorial in the current edition of the Church of Ireland Gazette praises Dr Walsh for his "generous and typically candid remarks", but also accuses him of wrongly implying that the inter church marriage problem is a thing of the past.
The two page opinion piece says that Bishop Walsh is obviously utterly sincere in his remarks of regret about the worst effects of the Catholic Church's Ne Temere decree, which obliged couples in inter church marriages to promise to raise their children as Catholics.
But the article adds that a casual observer might be forgiven for thinking that the problem was now simply a matter of history, which was not the case.
"A law abiding Roman Catholic seeking to marry a member of the Church of Ireland must still obtain either episcopal permission or dispensation and must make a prenuptial promise to do what they can, albeit within the unity of their partnership, to have all the children of the marriage brought up as Roman Catholics," says the editorial.
Roman Catholics marrying each other make an identical promise but this does not "explain away the problem. A promise that may be perfectly reasonable in a situation in which two people of the same tradition are marrying each other takes on a very different character in a substantially different situation," it says.
"Its wording takes no account of the reality or the sensitivity of that situation. It becomes a stumbling block just at the point when an interchurch couple should be discovering how their partnership offers immense potential for good in terms of promoting ecumenical understanding."
Furthermore, the editorial adds, talk of obtaining dispensations and the like implies that an inter church marriage is an exceptional, rather than a wholesome thing for Christian people.
The editorial claims that in many of Bishop Walsh's remarks, there is an "almost naive innocence: he sees only a pretty rosy picture".
"He implies that the interchurch marriage problem is a thing of the past, that we will all wait with prayerful patience to gather for the Eucharist at the one table. He expresses too little of the frustration bordering on anger that exists at local level concerning the present lack of visible ecumenical progress and he reflects little about what great harm this inertia is doing to the cause of all the churches.
The Gazette writer claims that Dr Walsh showed no awareness that inter communion is already a fact of life, with many inter church couples now receiving communion together in both churches.
"Bishop Walsh seems wedded to his church's official view that Eucharistic sharing is `not a step on the way but the ultimate goal of full unity'. Many people cannot, with a good conscience share the bishop's eternal patience."
