Ireland became the first country to legalize same-sex marriage over the weekend, a move a senior Vatican official has denounced as a “defeat for humanity.” At a conference in Rome on Tuesday, Cardinal Pietro Parolin said, “I was deeply saddened by the result. The church must take account of this reality, but in the sense that it must strengthen its commitment to evangelization. I think that you cannot just talk of a defeat for Christian principles, but of a defeat for humanity.” Parolin is the Vatican’s secretary of state and seen as second-in-command after the pope.
