Presbyterians are right to withhold judgement on papal stance on same-sex marriage

(The story can be read here: ‘Papal first as Pope Francis endorses same-sex unions,’ Oct 22)

The operative statement of Pope Francis as described in that News Letter report is, “homosexual people have the right to be in a family”.

The idea of family in the Latin culture tends to differ somewhat from that in the Anglo-Saxon sphere.

The former doesn’t necessarily intend an intimate physical relationship.

If you will bear with me, I can explain myself from research that I did for the Irish Revenue Commissioners 40 years ago on the introduction of legislation for taxation changes for married couples in Ireland.

I looked at the different taxation systems for married couples in Europe and America. What was evident from my research was that the concept of family differed, generally speaking, between Anglo-Saxon and Latin countries.

The Latin approach took a much broader view as to what constituted a family.

For example, grandparents and close relatives who were living in the same household were considered to be one family unit and were consequently given broad family tax reliefs. In the non-Latin countries, generally, this wider family tended to be seen as individuals and were taxed separately.

Given his Argentinian heritage, I don’t think Pope Francis will be overthrowing the teaching in the Catholic Catechism any time soon.

Micheal O’Cathail, Fermanagh

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