“I was deeply saddened by the result,” Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican’s secretary of state, said at a conference in Rome Tuesday night. “The Church must take account of this reality, but in the sense that it must strengthen its commitment to evangelization. I think that you cannot just talk of a defeat for Christian principles, but of a defeat for humanity.”
The remarks were reported by the British newspaper The Guardian. Irish voters passed the referendum, with 62% favoring a change to the constitution to allow same-sex marriage.
Meanwhile, another Catholic, from the other side of the Atlantic, hailed the Irish for standing for equality. Vice President Joe Biden described Ireland as “a nation where the people resoundingly stand for equal rights” after the referendum.
Writing in an Op-Ed article, Biden said that more than 1.2 million Irish voters “took a courageous stand for love and family when they overwhelmingly chose marriage equality,” The Irish Timesreported.
“They recognized the fundamental truth that every person is entitled to dignity and respect, and that there can be no justification for the denigration or persecution of anyone because of who they love or who they are,” he wrote.
