Speaking in Limerick in St John’s Cathedral, he said the new legislation
makes it a crime for a Registrar of Marriage to decline to officiate at
same-sex ceremonies, even for reasons of conscience.

The legislation, he added “also leaves the door open for individuals and
religious organisations to be sued in a variety of ways for upholding
their belief that marriage is an institution exclusively for a man and a
woman”.

He went on to point out that the proposed change in the law would
“directly challenging the Constitutional recognition that marriage is ‘a
moral institution possessing inalienable and imprescriptible rights,
antecedent and superior to all positive law'”.

The legislation, published earlier in the summer, will give same-sex
couples who register for the scheme partnerships which are equal in
status to marriage.

These partnerships will be entitled to the same benefits in tax and
welfare as married couples – the only difference being the right to
adopt children.

The new scheme will also remove ‘marital status’ from key legislation
and public documentation and replace it with ‘civil status’.

Christian politicians have a duty to judge Government legislation
designed to give same-sex couples marriage-like rights “in the light of
Divine Revelation and the natural law”, Cardinal Brady added.

Stressing that whatever “authentically promotes the common good can be
proposed in terms that find an echo in every human heart, Cardinal Brady
said that, whatever the new legislation stated, “marriage between a man
and a woman will always remain the ideal environment in which to raise
children”.

“Any government that undermines such an environment could hardly be said
to be promoting the common good,” he added.

Cardinal Brady said that, while it was right and proper that people were
increasingly giving due weight to the ecology, there were other aspects
to the integrity and well-being of creation which people were less
willing to acknowledge.

These included respect for human life in all its stages; respect for
marriage between man and woman as the natural cradle of life, love and
formation in society; and the right of every person to an adequate share
in the goods of the earth, he said.

Referring specifically to the issue of embryonic stem cell research, the
Cardinal said it showed “just how attractive a morality of the end
justifying the means can be”.

The same utilitarian approach to morality underlay the present
ecological crisis, he added.

“If we cannot respect our own inherent dignity from the moment of
conception, what hope has the rest of creation of receiving our care and
respect?” Cardinal Brady asked.