ZAPPONE ASKED LEO NOT TO FUND CATHOLIC FESTIVAL
Minister concerned event hosted by Pope will ‘encourage inequality’
KATHERINE Zappone has written to the Taoiseach and Tánaiste to demand that the State does not fund the upcoming World Meeting of Families, which the Pope will attend.
The Children’s Minister is fearful that the event will ‘encourage discrimination and inequality’ after there were reports of references to LGBT Catholics and their families being removed from literature about the WMOF event in Dublin.
Ms Zappone also cited ‘serious concerns’ raised to her by former president Mary McAleese about potential State funding for the event.
Pope Francis will visit Ireland on
August 25 and 26, and this will form the highlight of the global gathering for Catholics being hosted in Dublin from August 21 to 26. But Minister Zappone, in correspondence in February this year, said that ‘very serious concerns’ were brought to her attention about the forthcoming event involving the 81-year-old Pontiff.
In particular, she expressed concern about reports that documents associated with the event had been edited to remove ‘previously included references to LGBTI+ Catholics and their families’. Ms Zappone, who is herself openly gay and a prominent LGBT rights activist, wrote directly to Tánaiste Simon Coveney and Taoiseach Leo Varadkar on February 1 to flag the concerns she had about this and ‘the potential use of State funding’.
‘Very serious concerns have been brought to my attention by former president Mary McAleese and others regarding the forthcoming World Meeting of Families and the potential use of State funding,’ she wrote.
‘As a Government Minister, I share these concerns and believe they must be urgently addressed,’ she added in her correspondence on official department paper, which was released to the Irish
Mary McAleese shared concerns
Daily Mail through a Freedom of Information probe.
‘You will be aware of recent media reports about the editing of documents associated with the WMOF to remove previously included references to LGBTI+ Catholics and their families.
‘These actions have raised the prospect the meeting will include statements on homosexuality, gay marriage and gay adoption which will cause great hurt and offence, not just in our communities but to people worldwide.’
She added: ‘Our Government, through the Department of Foreign Affairs, has been to the forefront in promoting equality and human rights – offering hope to those facing inequality, discrimination and abuse.
‘Financial support for an event which encourages discrimination and inequality undermines and comprises this work, which has the support of the Irish people.’
A spokesman for Minister Zappone told the Mail that after her letter was sent, she went on to discuss the issues involved with Cabinet colleagues.
When asked if her concerns had been addressed, a spokesman said: ‘The details of the events in August have yet to be finalised. However, the Minister believes her concerns, and those of others, are being taken on board.’
The spokesman added that the State is ‘not providing financial support’ for the WMOF.
He said the Minister had no issue with money being spent on the Pope’s wider visit to Ireland as it is an official state visit.
A spokesman for the Taoiseach’s office said costings for the overall visit are ‘being finalised’ and that ‘a number of events are being considered and the World Meeting of Families is only one aspect of the visit’.
The Vatican, under Pope Francis, has adopted a more inclusive approach to gay people in recent times. In July 2013, he said: ‘If someone is gay and is searching for the Lord and has good will, then who am I to judge him?’
The remarks were seen by LGBT groups as setting an encouraging tone. However, the Pope remains opposed to samesex marriage, which Ms Zappone fought for with her late partner Dr Ann Louise Gilligan in the 2015 referendum.
Ms Zappone’s spokesman said the Minister ‘acknowledges the leadership shown by Pope Francis in bringing about positive change’. ‘However, as campaigners, as activists and as governments, we must ensure that no gathering, group or individual is ever allowed to undermine the rights of any of our people,’ the spokesman continued.
‘All aspects of our public life must be inclusive. There should be a welcome for all. And never
‘All aspects must be inclusive’
again should public statements or remarks which seek to isolate certain families be tolerated.’
The spokesman said it is Ms Zappone’s ‘hope that the event organised by the Catholic Church will not be used as a platform for remarks which exclude, isolate or hurt any family’.
He added that the ‘recent attempts to exclude our former president Mary McAleese from an event in the Vatican, together with the airbrushing out of images of LGBTI+ families from certain Church literature related to this event is a source of serious concern’.
A WMOF spokeswoman said the principal aim of this event is to ‘highlight the message and spirit of Pope Francis’s Apostolic Exhoration Amoris Laetitia (The Joy of Love)’. She added that in this text, the Pope ‘stresses that “every person, regardless of sexual orientation, ought to be respected in his or her dignity and treated with consideration”’.
The Pope is set to arrive in Ireland on August 25. He will attend the Festival of Families event in Croke Park and then a free openair Mass in the Phoenix Park.