Senior Vatican official calls Ireland's gay marriage vote a 'defeat for humanity'

Cardinal Pietro Parolin.
(Image credit: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images)

The Vatican's top diplomat said on Tuesday that the legalization of gay marriage in Ireland is a "defeat for humanity."

At a news conference in Rome, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican's secretary of state and second to the pope in the Holy See's hierarchy, said he was "deeply saddened by the result" of the vote. "The church must take account of this reality, but in the sense that it must strengthen its commitment to evangelization," he added.

After Ireland became the first country to legalize gay marriage by popular vote last week, Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin made a less inflammatory statement, saying, "It is very clear that if this referendum is an affirmation of the views of young people... [then the church needs] a reality check." The Guardian points out that Pope Francis has also referred to something as a "defeat for humanity," but in the pontiff's case, he was talking about war.

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia is night editor for TheWeek.com. Her writing and reporting has appeared in Entertainment Weekly and EW.com, The New York Times, The Book of Jezebel, and other publications. A Southern California native, Catherine is a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.