Traditional families and the culture of family remain “strong” in Ireland, the country’s leading prelates have told the Family Synod in Rome.

As he addressed the assembled delegates in Rome, Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, Primate of Ireland, acknowledged that Ireland’s recent referendum granting same-sex marriage inevitably posed questions as to the nation’s Christian tradition in relation to marriage, but stressed that the commitment of Irish people to traditional marriage and family remained.

“Many ask what happened at the recent referendum on same-sex marriage in Ireland,” Dr Martin said. “Has an authentic Christian culture of marriage disappeared in Ireland? It is not as simple as that.  Ireland after the referendum is still marked by a very strong family culture. The numbers who get married – and who get married in Church – are high and divorce statistics are among the lowest in Europe. Families are strong and generous. That has not changed substantially.”

Explaining that young Irish people today make their decisions on marriage and family “within the context of a flawed and antagonistic social culture”, Dr Martin went on to state that the recent referendum had revealed a “breakdown between two languages”.

“The referendum,” he said, “was debated within a social culture where people struggle to understand abstract moral principles. What they do understand is the predicament of individuals whom they wish to see happy and included.

“It is a very individualistic culture, but not necessarily an uncaring one. Indeed those in favour of same-sex marriage based their campaign on what was traditionally our language: equality, compassion, respect and tolerance.”

Warning that it was not helpful to merely “condemn that culture”, the Archbishop went on to call for inventive thinking towards evangelising it.

“We have to find a language which helps our young people to appreciate the newness and the challenge of the Gospel. We have to find a language which is a bridge to the day-to-day reality of marriage – a human reality, a reality not just of ideals, but of struggle and failure, of tears and joys.”

Archbishop Eamon Martin, Primate of All Ireland, meanwhile, in building on the image of “God’s tenderness” reflected in the family, urged his fellow prelates to recognise the traumas afflicting many families and which challenge victims’ ability to see God within the family or to keep tenderness alive.

“Let us not forget families which have experienced the trauma of abuse and domestic violence, those for whom the proclamation of what we call the ‘Good News’ of the Family may mean little or nothing,” he said.

Referring to the Church as “a family of families”, Archbishop Martin reminded the gathering of the terrible impact the crimes of abuse had on “the Church family”, describing it as “a wound that never seems to heal”.

“Perhaps our catechesis about ‘tenderness’  in paragraph 70 of the Instrumentum Laboris needs to reflect more openly these awful realities that afflict too many families today – families who ask: Where is God in all this? What of justice? Where do we find forgiveness? How does mercy and tenderness fit in?”