EDITORIAL

St. Patrick is surely weeping following Irish abortion vote

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Since 1983 unborn babies in Ireland have been protected by the 8th amendment to that country’s constitution. As of May 25, 2018 this legal protection no longer exists. On that day the people of Ireland voted to overturn the 8th amendment, and open a door that will eventually lead to the legalization of the abortion of babies in the womb as old as six months. Pro-life leaders there and around the world called the result of the referendum “a tragedy of historic proportions.”

But they did not call it “surprising” — because it wasn’t. Ireland, unfortunately, has been on the path to secularization for quite some time now. This became clear to many observers in 2015 when it became the first country to legalize same-sex “marriage” by popular vote (62 percent). No longer the bastion of Catholicism that it once was, Ireland is very quickly becoming mission territory, as are so many other countries in the Western world.

The sad irony, of course, is that for many decades she was the birthplace of a plethora of deeply committed missionaries who carried the gospel message to the four corners of the earth. Now, sad to say, our Irish brothers and sisters are among those in the world who need the most evangelizing. If such things are possible in the eternal kingdom of God, you can be sure that St. Patrick is weeping.