David Norris (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I do not wish to obtrude my religious views on this House but I speak today as a practising Christian and somebody who is very concerned about religious matters. This is International Women’s Day and the Voices of Faith organisation, an international organisation of committed Roman Catholics who deal with women have a conference in Rome about why women matter. Two women have been excluded and banned from the group, by an Irishman as it happens, Cardinal Kevin Farrell. It reminds me of the time when the Irish judge in the European Court of Human Rights voted against gay rights. We can always find one of our own to stab us in the back. Mrs. McAleese and Ms Ssenfuka Joanita Warry, who is from Uganda, and is extraordinarily courageous in defending the rights of gay people who are routinely murdered at the behest of the Christian churches in Uganda, have both been banned.

They join an enormous number of people who under the recent regimes have been persecuted, isolated and their careers destroyed. I think of people like Archbishop Hunthausen, Charles Curran, Leonardo Boff and the Reverend Professor Dr. John O'Neill. I could spend the whole morning listing them. They have driven out the greatest spiritual thinkers of the Roman Catholic Church to its immense detriment, to a point where Mrs. McAleese, a former President of Ireland, has described the entire leadership of the church as mediocre. I am afraid that is what they are. Mary McAleese has been President of Ireland and she has been gratuitously insulted. I think the Government should raise this with Rome. This is an insult to a former President of Ireland by a foreign state. Archbishop Martin, a decent man, who is Archbishop of Dublin was not consulted or even informed until Mrs. McAleese rang him. She said the church's hierarchy has reduced Christ to a rather unattractive, misogynistic, homophobic, anti-abortion politician. That is a pretty interesting charge for a former head of State of one of Europe's significant countries to make against the church to which she still belongs. I pay tribute to her for hanging on in there and trying to operate from inside the church. She speaks of misogynistic codology. She describes the theological works she has read as complete codology. They are of course. I read Ratzinger's rubbish, his theological drivelling about sexuality. I would fail a first year student for the kind of nonsense he went on with, but of course he is a Pope so he must be a genius because of his automatic connection. He is another mediocrity.

Mrs. McAleese says the church has become an "empire of misogyny". That is something that needs to be addressed by Seanad Éireann on International Women's Day. When a former President of Ireland, a brilliant lawyer and a remarkable campaigner is treated in this manner by the Roman Catholic Church I think we need to ask questions right at the top. I think we need to raise the issue at Government level with the Vatican.

I do not really know the circumstances but Senator Ó Ríordáin mentioned Sheriff Street. I heard part of a programme just before I left the house about the crèche which is being closed down. It is a remarkable place which housed a whole complex of children's resources in that very deprived parish and an attempt is being made to close it down. The centre is also home to a group known as the Little Larriers, after St. Laurence O'Toole, to whom the church is dedicated. Those are people who dragged themselves up in an area that is polluted with drugs and alive with poverty yet they have made something and they are being stopped by bureaucracy.