Interview with Archbishop Eamon Martin

…from Hot Press and a welcome return from political and other interviewer Jason O’Toole. It covers some ground in the interview with the Primate of All Ireland, and here’s just a few samples:

The Peace Process:

You previously told me the Peace Process was still a big concern for you. Do you believe that we can’t take peace for granted?
Very definitely. We see this out there in people who want to drag us back, who feel that you can still bomb people into a united Ireland. There are still people in our communities who think that the peace was a lie, and that it was too early to make peace. I don’t agree. I think it was too late. I think far too many people lost their lives, and far too many people were maimed and injured for life – and that’s only talking about the physical injuries, not to mention the psychological injuries. Why else would it be that there’s still much higher levels of anxiety and trauma in Northern Ireland than in Europe. There is a legacy. I don’t want to be moaning on like, “Poor Us”. I think it falls to us to try to help ourselves to gradually walk out of this nightmare that was our past.

On social issues:

Would you see homosexuality as a sin?
To be a homosexual person is not a sin. The church really speaks in terms of our sexuality as something that is open to creation and open to the creation of life. The church sees the proper place for the fullness of the expression of sexuality, that is in terms of sexual intercourse, as something that should happen within marriage.

And the 8th? Amongst other thoughts he says:

Personally, I can’t understand why Ireland, having voted so strongly for what was termed a marriage equality referendum, would now be seeking the views and the people of Ireland to vote for life inequality, when it is human life. And, quite simply, the 8th Amendment expresses that. It expresses the equal right to life of a mother and her unborn child.