{"id":10803,"date":"2018-08-26T20:16:11","date_gmt":"2018-08-26T14:31:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pahichan.com\/?p=10803"},"modified":"2018-08-26T20:16:11","modified_gmt":"2018-08-26T14:31:11","slug":"the-last-time-a-pope-visited-ireland-homosexuality-was-a-crime-now-the-irish-prime-minister-is-gay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/the-last-time-a-pope-visited-ireland-homosexuality-was-a-crime-now-the-irish-prime-minister-is-gay\/","title":{"rendered":"The last time a pope visited Ireland, homosexuality was a crime. Now the Irish prime minister is gay"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kathmandu (Pahichan) August 26 – In 2015, when Leo Varadkar was serving as Ireland\u2019s health minister, he came out as a gay man on national radio.<\/p>\n

The country was preparing to vote in a same-sex marriage referendum, and Varadkar\u00a0told the radio host that his sexuality is<\/a>\u00a0\u201cnot a secret, but it\u2019s not something that everyone would necessarily know.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also said, \u201cIt\u2019s not something that defines me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two-and-a-half years later, Varadkar, whose father was an Indian immigrant, was named prime minister. He is Ireland\u2019s first openly gay leader, the first leader from a minority background and, at 38 at the time of his appointment,\u00a0the country\u2019s youngest prime minister<\/a>.<\/p>\n

On Saturday, Varadkar welcomed Pope Francis to Ireland, a nation that has radically changed since the last papal visit, in 1979. At that time, homosexuality was still a crime. Now, the country\u2019s prime minister is gay.<\/p>\n

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In a speech at Dublin Castle with Pope Francis nearby Aug. 25, Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar urged the pope to “listen to the victims and survivors.”<\/span>\u00a0(AP)<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Varadkar is a distinct example of how what was once an overwhelmingly white, Catholic nation is now increasingly diverse and its laws increasingly secular. Ireland is the first country to have legalized same-sex marriage through a popular vote, and this year, the country\u00a0repealed its restrictive abortion ban<\/a>. Many see the country\u2019s new policies and shifting demographics as evidence that the Irish are moving further and further away from the Catholic Church.<\/p>\n

The day before his arrival, Varadkar said the church previously \u201chad too much of a dominant place in our society.\u201d<\/p>\n

And in his remarks in front of the pope Saturday, the prime minister said the Irish have \u201cvoted in our Parliament and by referendum to modernize our laws.\u201d He said new policies reflect the country\u2019s understanding that \u201cmarriages don\u2019t always work, that women should make their own decisions, and that families come in many different wonderful forms including those headed by a grandparent, lone parent or same-sex partners or parents who are divorced and remarried.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brian Finnegan, editor of Ireland\u2019s Gay Community News, said that the last time a pope visited, 39 years ago, Irish leaders were more likely to have said: \u201c \u2018We wont have any contraception or allow people divorce or even talk of homosexuality,\u2019 just \u2018your eminence, you\u2019re here, and we love you, and we love the church.’ \u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere would\u2019ve been no defense at all,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

That makes Varadkar\u2019s meeting with the pope that much more symbolic. For many, an openly gay leader of a predominantly Catholic country meeting the leader of the Catholic Church, an institution that does not recognize same-sex marriage, would have once been unthinkable.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s quite empowering to see a gay leader of a country stand in front of the gay community on the stage of Dublin Pride and say we\u2019re valid and we\u2019re valuable and we have every reason to be proud of who we are given the long history of oppression,\u201d Finnegan said.<\/p>\n

In an interview with RTE news Friday<\/a>, Varadkar said he hoped to talk to the pope about issues including clerical sex abuse and the exclusion of the LGBT community from the church. Varadkar had a brief meeting with the pope following his more public remarks Saturday. His spokesman\u00a0told the Irish Times<\/a>\u00a0that he \u201csaid to the pope that there are huge numbers of people here who have faith in their heart but who feel excluded and alienated from the church because of what happened.\u201d<\/p>\n

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At the top of the first papal visit to Ireland in 39 years, Aug. 25, Pope Francis addressed abuse scandals, advised married couples and visited homeless people.<\/span>\u00a0(Sarah Parnass \/The Washington Post)<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Already on Saturday, campaigners for sex abuse survivors\u00a0said the pontiff had not gone far enough<\/a>\u00a0in taking responsibility for the Vatican\u2019s role in covering up abuse at the hands of the clergy.<\/p>\n

Tiernan Brady, director of Equal Future, an LGBT advocacy campaign, said he is not hopeful that a single, brief meeting between Varadkar and Francis will do much to change the pontiff\u2019s position on marriage equality and other LGBT issues. But \u201cwhen someone stands up and talks about themselves, it changes the space that they\u2019re in,\u201d Brady said. \u201cFor our gay prime minister to talk to the pope is a fantastic moment to demonstrate the reality of life in Ireland.\u201d<\/p>\n

And in modern-day Ireland, Brady said, \u201cbeing LGBT is unremarkable in daily life.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re wonderfully blas\u00e9 about having a gay prime minister,\u201d he said. And that alone shows just how much Ireland has changed.<\/p>\n

Copy :\u00a0www.washingtonpost.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kathmandu (Pahichan) August 26 – In 2015, when Leo Varadkar was serving as Ireland\u2019s health minister, he came out as a gay man on national radio.
\nThe country was preparing to vote in a same-sex marriage referendum, and Varadkar\u00a0told the radio host that his sexuality is\u00a0\u201cnot a secret, but it\u2019s not something that everyone would necessarily know.\u201d
\nHe also said, \u201cIt\u2019s not something that defines me.\u201d
\nTwo-and-a-half years later, Varadkar, whose father was an Indian immigrant, was named prime minister. He is Ireland\u2019s first openly gay leader, the first leader from a minority …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":10804,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,621,490,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10803","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-current-issue","category-news","category-slider","category-world"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10803","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10803"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10803\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10805,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10803\/revisions\/10805"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10804"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}