A prominent Irish politician who claims to be Catholic said she will not go to confession after voting to repeal unborn babies’ constitutional rights.
Mary McAleese, a former president in Ireland, responded to Catholic Bishop Kevin Doran of Elphin who urged Catholics to attend confession if they voted to repeal the country’s pro-life Eighth Amendment.
The Irish Independent reports McAleese flouted the bishop’s urging and openly touted her vote to allow the legalized killing of unborn babies in Ireland. She made the statements at a weekend conference organized by the Catholic lay group We Are Church Ireland in Dublin.
“I had no hesitation at the end of the day when it came to the vote – I absolutely voted Yes,” McAleese told reporters at the event.
Here’s more from the report:
She added that, since voting, she has not gone to confession to repent her decision and has “no intention whatsoever” of doing so. …
Asked about Bishop Doran’s stance on confession, Dr McAleese said: “These are man-made rules, these are not statements of an infallible Church.”
She said the Yes votes in the same-sex marriage referendum and the abortion referendum by ordinary people who were baptised into that Church and are subject to the canon rules of that Church was a statement by these Catholics that their freedom of conscience trumps the curial Church’s idea of what is a mortal sin.
On May 25, Irish citizens voted to repeal the Eighth Amendment, which protects unborn babies’ right to life. Now, lawmakers are considering a bill to legalize abortion for any reason up to 12 weeks and in a wide variety of circumstances up to six months.
A few days after the vote, Duran encouraged Catholics who voted in favor of the repeal to come confess their sins.
“What I would say to a Catholic who voted yes is this: if you voted yes knowing and intending that abortion would be the outcome, then you should consider coming to confession, where you would be received with the same compassion that is shown to any other penitent,” he said.
The Catholic Church teaches that abortion is sin because it destroys an innocent human life, made in God’s image.
Duran and other bishops have described Catholics who vote pro-abortion as “cultural Catholics” who pick and choose which teachings to follow.
Committed Catholics have been some of the strongest advocates for unborn babies in Ireland and across the world. They continue to fight tirelessly to save babies from the violence and destruction of abortion.
For decades, the Eighth Amendment protected unborn babies and mothers equally in Ireland by recognizing that both are valuable human beings who deserve a right to life. More than 100,000 Irish unborn babies and mothers were spared from the pain and death of abortion.
Ireland also was one of the safest places in the world for pregnant mothers and their babies, with one of the lowest maternal mortality rates in the world.
Now, the fear is Ireland’s abortion law will mirror Britain’s, where one in every five pregnancies there ends in abortion each year. In Britain, abortion is permitted until 24 weeks of pregnancy.
