The Bishop of Killaloe, Dr Willie Walsh, has queried the love, forgiveness, and compassion in Catholic Church teaching which forbids couples in irregular unions from full participation in the sacraments of reconciliation and holy communion.
"At a very basic level our church often presents as less than loving to those who are in some way in conflict with official teaching. I have in mind people in second/irregular unions, people of homosexual orientation, people who feel alienated by teaching on family planning.
"This raises the issue of preaching ideals and yet respecting those who for any variety of reasons may be unable at this time to live by those ideals. For example, the couple in an irregular union may well subscribe to the church teaching that marriage is a lifelong commitment but may be unable to live out that ideal because one of them married at a very young age and found themselves in an intolerable relationship which they had to leave," he said.
Commenting during an interview in the April issue of Intercom magazine he continued: "Can we reconcile the ideal of marriage as a lifelong commitment and yet treat with respect and with tangible love the couple who are unable to live that ideal in their lives right now? Is it consistent with a church which is forgiving, loving, compassionate to permanently exclude them from full participation in the sacraments of penance and eucharist?
"Precisely the same dilemma arises for many couples in relation to family planning.
"We may not find a solution to these dilemmas but a loving church must treat with respect, with dignity, with sensitivity and with love those who are unable to live by the ideals which it upholds."
Christ's commandment of love "at the very least demands that I respect the dignity of every other person no matter what differences may arise between us," he said. The church "is and always will be a church of saints and sin-ners and which of us is not part saint and part sinner? And the saint of today will be the sinner of tomorrow, and vice versa."
And while "our church is the baptised people of God open to saints and sinners alike, it must also be open to the wider world, respecting people of other faiths and of none. It must respect too those who have been baptised but who have chosen 'to walk no more with us'," he said.
