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Vatican Calls Ireland Same-Sex Marriage Vote a ‘Defeat for Humanity’

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Vatican’s Secretary of State says the vote for marriage equality shows that ‘the church must strengthen its commitment to evangelization.’

While Friday's vote to changeIreland's constitution to allow same-sex marriage was very much a cause for celebration, The Guardian reports that not everyone was too keen on the results.

"I was deeply saddened by the result," said Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican's secretary of state, at a conference in Rome on Tuesday. "The church must takeaccount 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."

Parolin is the Vatican's top diplomat and is seen as second only to the pope himself. Parolin's remarks have been the most critical from a senior church official.

In contrast, archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin said of the vote, which has made Ireland the first country in the world to legalize same-sex marriage through a popular vote, "It is very clear that if this referendum is an affirmation of the views of young people ... [then the church needs] a reality check."

It turns out that Parolin borrowed the phrase "defeat for humanity" from his boss: the Pope. Pope Francis, who once said "who am I to judge," when asked about the Vatican's gay priests, used "defeat for humanity," but when he was talking about war, not same-sex marriage.

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Alex Panisch