Sir, – Addressing Dr Diarmuid Martin’s intervention at the synod on the family in Rome, Dr Eimhin Walsh ( October 15th) suggests that our problems would abate if the church “ceases using the word marriage and uses the sacramental term ‘holy matrimony’ instead”. This is no solution at all.
Dr Walsh’s proposal is for a world where the church and state keep to their respective realms, but this is make-believe in Ireland. Indeed, it is very hard to swallow this idea when the current Irish Register of Solemnisers is far from endorsing your letter-writer’s conviction that marriage is exclusively a civil and secular institution. In fact, the vast majority of state-approved actors on this list of 5,778 are Catholic priests and other religious officials.
To achieve his dream world, Dr Walsh needs a change of structure, not language. Until Ireland adopts a regime akin to many European continental systems, where the religious and civil elements of solemnising marriage are not wed, Dr Walsh’s hopes for separate vocabulary rest on quicksand. – Yours, etc,
Dr SEÁN
ALEXANDER SMITH,
Sandyford,
Dublin 18.