The Meaning of Ireland and the Ordination Dance

A nun votes in the referendum on the Eighth Amendment. Photo: Damien Eagers

From across the pond, as they say, it’s very bold of me to speculate on the meaning of the Irish referendum on #8 to make abortion legal. Probably unwise, too. But that’s never stopped me. And I have been feeling more than thinking about it all.

Most interpretations focus on another radical change in a Catholic country, a diminution of influence due to the sex abuse and corruption scandals. Betrayal, resentment: these words are not too strong. When loyalty has been so absolute, it dissolves rapidly and deeply with the truth.

That truth is the truth about women. Women spoke out for themselves and for those among them who most suffer when abortions are banned. They convinced men and themselves that abortion in a bad situation is a moral choice when the alternative is more suffering, even death. They are not hiding any more.

Abortion is a tragedy, a sadness, whatever the circumstances are when it is judged necessary. I do not believe it is ever an easy decision, though unplanned pregnancy can be an easy mistake. I hope that whatever constraints against contraception that may linger in the Irish soul are also destroyed by the truth of this referendum.

It is especially significant that the church continues to think that it can suppress this truth. The next World Meeting of Families will be in Dublin. Will women’s truth be spoken there? In Philadelphia, where the last World Meeting was held, the truth of LGBTQI people was spoken in the public sphere as well as in the sessions. August in Dublin is the moment for women to be a similar presence, to speak their truth.

And what other truth about women does the church continue to think it can suppress? The vote in Ireland was May 25, counted and proclaimed May 26. On May 29, the chair of the office formerly known as the Inquisition announced that on May 30 in L’Osservatore Romano an article would be published about the ordination of women. A similar little two-day dance, but this one crushing the truth about women. Not a vote by women. Or even men. Another statement by a Vatican official:

Archbishop Luis Ladaria also states that expressing doubt about the barring of women from the priesthood “creates serious confusion among the faithful.”

Ladaria, who is to be made a cardinal by Pope Francis in June and is the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, says Jesus decided to reserve the sacrament of priestly ordination “to the twelve apostles, all men, who, in turn, communicated it to other men.”

I rather like the idea that this virus is communicated by men to men. It helps to mitigate my fury. I note that the deacon virus is not so clearly communicated only to men, a dance that women may be invited to join in some fashion. Ladaria also dances around infallibility. Is that little lapse by John Paul II enough to open the door a crack, the door that Benedict XIV and even Francis are trying so hard to keep closed? The truth will not be so easily hidden.

I am sorry not to have provided links to the many, many articles on the Irish referendum. They are easily searched. So, for that matter, is the Ladaria statement, except in English. But note the timing. How long ago was this rebuke to women planned? How correctly did the Vatican understand the inevitable result of Irish women speaking their truth?