Ireland's Catholic bishops have said they view "with alarm" proposals to reduce the age of consent for sex to 16. Patsy McGarry, Religious Affairs Correspondent, reports
"Children need to be protected not only from irresponsible adults but also from themselves, until they reach the age of maturity, now considered to be 18," they said in a statement yesterday following their three-day winter meeting at Maynooth.
They expressed "amazement" that politicians and public opinion makers "shy away from confronting the basic demands of morality, namely what is right and wrong" in this context. The bishops were responding to the report of the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Child Protection which recently recommended that the age of sexual consent be reduced from 17 to 16 years.
The bishops said they wished to register their "deep concern at the lack of any reference to the moral issues involved" in the committee report.
"The question of child protection should not blind the public to the broader issues, such as the increase in teenage sexual activity and its consequences in terms of danger not only to their physical and psychological health, but also - and in particular - to their moral well-being," they said.
In that context, lowering the age of consent to 16 sent out the wrong signal to a young generation who, under the influence of teenage glossy magazines, peer pressure and binge drinking, feel engaging in sexual activity is something trivial, they said.
"For Christians, sex is anything but trivial. Sex is sacred and is reserved for the loving, caring context of a life-long marriage. Sexual abstinence is part of the moral preparation for the radical commitment that constitutes marriage.
"Anything that would undermine the moral effort needed to preserve moral and physical integrity among teenagers must be resisted by any mature society," the bishops said.
The proposal to lower the age of consent also sent out the wrong signal to parents, "who are themselves often confused as to how they should react in the face of their children's activities".
In their statement the bishops also rejected 31 of the 40 recommendations from the Government-appointed Commission for Assisted Human Reproduction, arguing that "once fertilisation is complete, the organism has become a human being. There is nothing else it can be."