Last Friday being St Valentine’s Day it wasn’t surprising that love, romance, sex and marriage figured in media discussions.
Our Divine Sparks (RTÉ Radio 1, Friday) featured some historical background about the saint. Apparently, 3rd-century Roman Emperor Claudius II banned marriage because married men don’t make for good soldiers! So, Valentine performed secret marriages and was hauled off to jail and execution. One story was that he fell in love with the jailer’s daughter and sent her a letter signed ‘from your Valentine’, which certainly started a tradition. But then Valentine was a common name in Rome at the time so historians have some trouble distinguishing between them.
Fr James Eivers of Whitefriar Street Church in Dublin told of the great interest in the saint. His relics are stored there – gifted by Pope Gregory XVI in the 1830’s. On the saint’s day there was Mass and renewal of marriage vows. His shrine has an intentions book – apart from the romantic stuff, sometimes parents pray that their children will be blessed with love. For those who aren’t so fortunate, there’s a shrine nearby to St Jude – patron saint of hopeless cases!
More practical aspects of marriage were discussed when presenter Dearbhail Mc Donald interviewed David Quinn about an Iona Institute report (‘Religion, Marriage and Fertility: Shall the Religious Inherit Ireland?’), on the demographic problems caused by the current decline in marriage and fertility. Simply put, in the not-too-distant future there will be an increasing number of older people being supported by a decreasing number of younger people, with all the pressures that will cause. The report shows that religious people, regardless of which religion they belong to, tend to have more children, hence the second half of the report’s title.
David Quinn suggested that one of the reasons behind this “incredible aging of the population” was a “prioritising of personal freedom above the huge commitment of starting a family”. He outlined the ‘pro-social’ benefits of religious practice and reckoned that a change wasn’t going to come from Church leadership, but from within young people themselves (hopefully with the nudging of the Holy Spirit).
The final item asked if ‘sex’ was a dirty word in the eyes of God, but, despite some insights about ‘dignity and flourishing’, there were too many clichés, stereotypes, misunderstandings and rationalising about Christian teaching on sexuality.
Saturday Morning Live (BBC One, Sunday) dealt with unsavoury aspects of relationships, and, in the light of controversies about abuse in the Church of England, asked the question – ‘Can the Church be trusted to police itself?’ Their governing body had rejected a fully independent safeguarding structure to deal with abuse cases, opting instead for a hybrid model of ‘independent oversight’. Two speakers, including a survivors’ representative, were critical of the rejection, believing that the approach ought to be truly independent, while two thought it was a good idea. The latter believed a totally independent model would amount to passing the buck, passing off their responsibilities to others rather than tackling the issues themselves. There was an Anglican clergyman on both sides of the argument. What wasn’t made clear enough, and this is often the case in controversial debates, was that all four were obviously convinced of the awfulness of the abuse and of the vital need for safeguarding. Of course, people of good will can agree on principle but disagree on strategy.
I’m not sure that good will motivates the hounding of people whose orthodox Christian views on sexuality and gender offend those who disagree. On Rod Liddle (Times Radio, Saturday) the host spoke to lawyer Michael Phillips of the Christian Legal Centre who said that ‘to offend is not an offence’. He had represented UK school worker Kristie Higgs who won her appeal case against dismissal over sharing, on a private Facebook group, her concerns about the teaching of LGBT and gender ideology in a Church of England primary school that her son attended. As Sen. Rónán Mullen said recently, the process is the punishment, and the vindication comes over five years after the initial complaint. The presenter was taken aback by the ‘astonishing number’ of cases being fought by the Christian Legal Centre – it was around a thousand per year, including one where a student was being required to attend a Pride march.
Learning is one thing, he said, but a requirement to participate and celebrate was something may parents would have a problem with.
