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FORMER TAOISEACH LEO Varadkar has extended his condolences to Catholics on the death of Pope Francis and commended his outreach to the LGBTQ+ community.
Varadkar, Ireland’s first openly gay Taoiseach, was in the role when Pope Francis visited Ireland in 2018.
His visit to Ireland that year was the first of a reigning pope in almost 40 years.
Speaking this morning on RTÉ Radio 1, Varadkar, who stood down as Taoiseach and leader of Fine Gael last year, spoke of the impact Pope Francis has had on the LGBTQ+ community around the globe.
Varadkar said he believes Pope Francis brought a twofold change to the Catholic church.
Firstly, that he prioritised people over doctrine and secondly, that he welcomed people back to the church who had previously felt unaccepted.
“For a lot of people, and certainly for me as somebody who was raised Catholic, who did my communion and confirmation, but felt remote from the church for a long time, I think the way he reached out to groups like ours, like LGBT people, did matter and certainly made me feel more comfortable going to church services,” Varadkar said.
Varadkar added that it was significant that Pope Francis spoke out about the criminalisation of gay and lesbian people.
“In Ireland, it’s easy to forget that while there are thirty countries where gay people can get married, there is seventy where it is still a crime. And for the Pope to speak out against that in places like Africa is actually of real significance,” Varadkar said.
He added: “And bear in mind, at the moment, in politics around the world, there are people who claim that God is on their side, while they try to reduce the rights of LGBT people, while they try to treat migrants badly, while they try to deny climate action.
“And having a pope, the head of the largest Christian church, saying that refugees should be sheltered, saying that our planet was sick and that we need to act to save it, saying that LGBT people should not be criminalised, that did matter. And I do hope his successor is of a similar mind.”
Early into his papacy, Francis said: “If a person is gay and seeks out the Lord and is willing, who am I to judge that person?”
Later, Pope Francis called for the Church to apologise for the harm it has caused to the LGBTQ+ community, saying: “We Christians have to apologise for so many things, not just for this [treatment of gay people], but we must ask for forgiveness, not just apologise.”
And in recent years, Francis formally allowed priests to bless same-sex couples.
He also recently affirmed that transgender people can be baptised into the Church and act as Godparents.
Includes reporting from Diarmuid Pepper.
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As usual trying to put a good spin on Ireland’s figures. Most of our improvement is due to “scambridge” hiring interns.
Most countries have internships. My friend is doing one in London.
And most of Germanys low figure is accountable due to the fact that they don’t have a minimum hourly wage – I’m not sure if it is the same in Austria. This means people can be working, legally, for nothing. Just another way that a government is trying to hide it’s unemployment rate.
Although, some quick googling to fact check shows that Germany have actually agreed to introduce a minimum wage by next year – Let’s see if they keep the same low unemployment levels with that.
Bobby, the difference between an internship and the ‘job’bridge interns is that any employer can hire as many job bridge interns as they want, pay them nothing, and then let them go after the time, and then just hire another poor soul to do the exact same job. No promise to keep them on, and in a lot of cases you see, no real value to the internships offered (stacking shelves, washing cars etc.).
Exactly, it’s mostly completely taken advantage of.
It is a crap system, but it’s the same in England, graduates doing interns stacking shelves. Recently a graduate was sent to work in a pound shop by the jobcentre to stack shelves. She took them to court and won?
So just because they are taking complete advantage of young unemployed people in Britain, it’s grand that we’re doing the same here?
Nope, I never said that, just letting you know you’re not alone.
Ah sorry, my misunderstanding. I thought you were just trying to justify the system because it happens elsewhere.
Actually, I believe Germany has just introduced a minimum wage (€8.50) in the last few weeks.
White Fang, yes I know and linked to an article about it (as it was news to me until I looked it up) in my post above.
Maybe people should look up the definition of internships. Then compare them to what happens on the jobsbridge scam!
Sorry Dave, I completely missed that!
@alan Most of our improvement is due to high end IT, Pharma and Finance jobs. Basic maths kiddo (which ironically is the reason you wouldn’t get a job in any of those sectors.)
Every job in FAS/Solas is for this scam, and scam it is when local auctioneers & solicitors advertising for staff promising a good internship, funded by money stolen from private pension accounts, most vile Government in the history of the state.l
@Bobby
I don’t know if it’s the same story, but I read about a woman with a history degree who was serving as a volunteer intern in a museum.
But her local job centre told her she couldn’t volunteer as that meant she wasn’t “available for work”. They then promptly put her to work in Dealz. And she would lose her dole payment if she refused to take the “job”. So she ended up working a 40 hour week against her will for approx £70.
Dealz wins. Job centre wins. Everyone but the poor woman who was working towards a more permanent placement in the museum wins.
Thanks for that Tom.
The BBC said last week, 26 million people unemployed in the EU
Bobby what possible reason could Eurostat have for manipulation of the true figures.
26 million unemployed in the EU, 18 million in the Eurozone.
Does anybody have an accurate figure as to what our unemployment rate would look like without the old immigration release valve? I imagine we’d be looking at close to the same rate as Greece. We sure are lucky that we speak English and can ship out all those workers for whom there are no jobs.
18 million jobless in the EU and still hundreds of thousands on non EU migrants are allowed enter Europe looking for work every year…madness
I’d love to know out of that 18.9 million how many are people that never want to work . Freeloaders if you will.
With any luck Gilmore will be out of a job soon.
Going by some of the regular trolls….probably 18 million or so..sure who,d want to work when you can live in luxury on the scratcher..and the sort of tripe these idiots post.
The people out of work need help people like you gay only make the situation worse !!
Who are the freeloaders to which you refer? Politicans such as our own, spineless lot? or people in long term unemployment on benefits who require said benefits to survive? We know who gets the blame these days and its the latter.
Yes its so much fun been on the dole and trying to scrape by on 100euro a week…madness!.and you have the cheek to call us all freeloaders?.funnily enough most of us would rather be working and earning some sort of living for ourselves as opposed to living on peanuts!.
well said Denise. the contempt is disgraceful
Thank you Sean, I just get tired of hearing how we are all lazy so-and-so’s when its not the case at all…i got laid off a couple of weeks back simply because there wasnt enough work and have had no luck with finding another job
At 5000 jobs a month Happy Gilmore will have it sorted in 300 years. On a side note… That labour, 70000 jobs ad (blatant lie) at the bottom is making me sick.
I am glad to see those good for nothing screw balls in Leinster house got them self A3Job .
have your say