Fr Brian D’Arcy RMG97
Fr Brian D’Arcy has revealed that despite believing marriage is between a man and a woman, he would have voted yes in the Republic’s same-sex marriage referendum last May.
In an interview with journalist Eamonn Mallie broadcast on Irish TV on Monday night, the Rector of the Graan in Enniskillen expressed annoyance that living in the North prevents him from voting on constitutional issues.
He said: “I still think a marriage is between a man and a woman but the State has made an equivalent arrangement between same-sex people so I’m quite happy to allow that to happen. Had I a vote, I probably would have voted yes to it because it was the State saying we have to look after people that nobody else is looking after.”
The 70-year-old Passionist priest has spoken out many times about his belief that priests should be allowed to marry and said he definitely regrets not having been able to do so himself.
“I would have loved to have got married. I would love to be at a stage now where I’m talking continuously about my grandchildren, like most of my contemporaries. I think I would have left something to the world after that. As I go now, I’ll drop out of it and maybe not have left all that much but if that’s what God wants, that’s what God wants.”
Fr D’Arcy said he did fall in love with a woman in the past but “didn’t break any of his vows”.
“It was the most lovely thing to ever happen to me; it made a man out of me,” he said. “Everyone should fall in love and understand that’s an opening out of your spirit. What’s the sacrifice of being a priest and being celibate if you don’t know what the sacrifice is in the beginning and you don’t know what you are giving up.”
He has also been a vocal critic of the church’s teaching on contraception and its handling of clerical sexual abuse.
“We as a group of clerics are not able to handle child abuse because we’re old, we’re celibate, we’re away from families, we’re living in an unreal world,” he added.
Fr D’Arcy said he was destroyed by the Vatican’s attempts to censure him in April 2012 following an anonymous complaint.
“It was a big burden – in many ways it kind of destroyed me. It took a long time and counselling to find out why I took it so badly. The reason I took it so badly is because it was being re-abused by clerics. It brought it to the top again, the abuse I had been dealt by clerics,” he said.
“I knew I was right to say what I was saying – to protect children and that people who have abused children should not be practising or that clerics should be investigating each other.”
To read more.. Subscribe to current edition
Receive quality journalism wherever you are, on any device. Keep up to date from the comfort of your own home with a digital subscription.
Any time | Any place | Anywhere