Ireland rejects life
The Nativity , Federico Fiori Barocci [ Web Gallery of Art ] After I celebrated Mass yesterday in a Dublin parish a number of women approached me to tell me how devastated they were by the overwhelming majority that voted in the Republic of Ireland on Friday 25 May in favour of removing the Eighth Amendment from the Irish Constitution that protected the right to life of both the life of a pregnant mother and of the child she was carrying. The voters chose to replace this with a sentence that will allow the Oireachtas, the Irish legislature, to legalise abortion. The government plans to introduce legislation that will allow for abortion for any reason up to twelve weeks and in limited circumstances thereafter. The women who spoke to me were shell-shocked, as I was myself with the 67 percent to 33 percent in favour of change. One of them told me that she had felt very depressed going to Mass but that my homily had given her some hope. I had simply emphasised, without r