接纳同性婚姻的爱尔兰与天主教会渐行渐远
日期:2015-05-28 15:23

(单词翻译:单击)

DUBLIN — The morning after Ireland learned it had become the first nation to approve same-sex marriage by popular vote, Diarmuid Martin, the archbishop of Dublin, looked out at the future of the Roman Catholic Church.
都柏林——爱尔兰成为世界上首个通过全民投票将同性婚姻合法化的国家,次日清晨,都柏林总主教迪亚姆德·马丁 (Diarmuid Martin)思索着罗马天主教的未来在何方。
It could be found at St. Mary’s Pro-Cathedral here, in downtown Dublin, as two rows of children awaited confirmation before him in the lofty, column-lined church.
这个未来也许就在都柏林市中心的圣玛利亚临时主教座堂(St. Mary’s Pro-Cathedral)里。孩子们正分列两排,在高大威严、立柱高耸的教堂里等待领受总主教的坚振圣事。

“Boys and girls, I made my confirmation 60 years ago,” he told them, adding, “Your world is different from mine.”
“男孩们、女孩们,我是六十年前领受坚振的,”总主教告诉他们,接着又说,“你们的世界和我的不同。”
Not far away, the streets were quiet after a long night of celebrating. Revelers filled the bars, beeped horns, waved rainbow flags and drank Guinness after the result was announced on Saturday. The size of the victory energized supporters, with the referendum affirmed by 62 percent of the electorate and passed in all but one of Ireland’s 43 districts.
不远处,整夜欢庆后的街道十分安静。周六投票结果公布后,欢庆的人挤满了酒吧,把喇叭按得哔哔作响,挥舞着彩虹旗,畅饮吉尼斯黑啤。这次的大胜让人兴奋不已,62%的选民投了赞成票,爱尔兰的43个区除一个区外都同意同性恋婚姻合法化。
After the votes were counted, the carefully planned and executed campaign by activist groups seemed as much about putting behind a past entrenched in theocracy and tradition as it was about marriage for gays and lesbians. And it underscored how different Ireland is today for the young, who turned out in droves to vote. In a little more than a generation, Ireland has both distanced itself from the church and sharpened its secular identity.
计票结束后再来看待这场由活动人士精心计划并实施的运动,它的目标除了争取同性婚姻,似乎还要将一个与神权和传统密不可分的过去抛诸脑后。对于成群前去投票的年轻人来说,结果也凸显了如今的爱尔兰有多么不同。不过一个世代多一点的时间,爱尔兰不仅与教会疏远了,还强化了自己的世俗身份。
At St. Mary’s, the results of the referendum, as one might expect, did not come up — the archbishop instead quipped about his first experience with a cellphone. But afterward, speaking at a house next to the church, he conceded that much had changed.
如人所料,投票结果并未在圣玛丽教堂被提及——总主教反倒是打趣谈起自己第一次用手机的情形。但事后在教堂附近的一栋房子里发言时,他承认许多事情已经改变了。
“The church needs to take a reality check,” Archbishop Martin said after the Mass, repeating a comment he had made Saturday. “It’s very clear there’s a growing gap between Irish young people and the church, and there’s a growing gap between the culture of Ireland that’s developing and the church.”
“教会需要认清现实,”马丁总主教在弥撒后重申了他在周六做出的评论。“很明显,爱尔兰年轻人和教会的隔阂越来越大,处在发展中的爱尔兰文化和教会之间的隔阂也越来越大。”
The country’s cultural evolution reflects a blend of disaffection with the church, and Ireland’s willingness to embrace a wider vision of itself in the world. As the church lost many people in its scandals and its unwillingness to yield to sexual freedoms, the European Union found itself with a willing and eager member.
爱尔兰文化的演变既体现了人们对教会的不满,也表达了爱尔兰人希望能与世界更紧密联系的意愿。由于丑闻和对于性开放的不妥协态度,教会失去了很多支持者,而欧盟因此获得了一个主动且热切的成员国。
The shift didn’t happen overnight. After Ireland broke from Britain in 1922, it was a virtual colony to the Vatican, a theocracy in all but name.
但改变并不是一夜间发生的。爱尔兰在1922年脱离英国后几乎就是梵蒂冈(Vatican)的殖民地,本质上施行神权统治。
John Charles McQuaid, the longtime archbishop of Dublin, played a central role in drafting Ireland’s Constitution before he became archbishop, hewing to conservative church doctrine and closely involving himself in details as small as the placement of commas in the document. That kind of unchecked dominance by the church continued for decades.
在成为总主教前,曾在位多年的都柏林总主教约翰·查尔斯·麦夸伊德(John Charles McQuaid)在《爱尔兰宪法》的起草过程中扮演了关键角色,在其中贯彻了保守教义,连哪里加逗号之类的细节都亲自过问。这种无以制衡的教会统治持续了数十年。
In 1979, more than one million people turned out for Pope John Paul II’s visit to Dublin, a staggering crowd in a country with a population of about 3.4 million at the time. In 1983, by a two-thirds majority, Ireland hewed to church teachings and passed a referendum outlawing abortion except in cases where a mother’s life was at risk, after a divisive campaign.
1979年,教皇约翰·保罗二世(John Paul II)访问都柏林,一百多万人前往瞻仰。对于一个当时只有约340万人口的国家来说,这个数量是惊人的。1983年,经过一场导致分歧的游说运动后,爱尔兰依循教义,以三分二多数投票通过立法禁止堕胎,只有产妇有生命危险时才能例外。
But signs of resistance had already been showing. In 1971, women’s rights activists organized a “condom train,” going over the border to Belfast and bringing back condoms to a country that outlawed contraception.
但抵抗的迹象已经显现。1971年妇女权利倡导者们组织了一辆“避孕套列车”,穿越边境去贝尔法斯特,让避孕套回到这个视节育为非法的国家。
Tony Flannery, a priest who was suspended in 2012 because of his criticism of the church’s views on women and homosexuality, said contraception was a seminal issue for a generation that became the parents of today’s youngest voters.
2012年,神父托尼·弗兰纳里(Tony Flannery)因批评教会关于女性和同性恋的观点而被停职,他认为避孕对于一代人来说是一个重大的问题,而今天投票的年轻人则是那一代人的子女。
And it “was the first time that Irish Catholics first questioned church teaching,” Mr. Flannery said. “That opened the door, and after that they increasingly began to question a whole raft of Catholic sexual teaching, and then the child sexual abuse scandal came along which destroyed church credibility in the whole area of sexuality.”
“这是爱尔兰天主教徒第一次质疑教会的教义”,弗兰纳里说道。“这开启了一扇门,至此以后教徒们越来越多地开始天主教在性方面的教义产生全面质疑,之后又发生了儿童性侵丑闻,彻底摧毁了教会在这方面的威信。
Even the reputation of Archbishop McQuaid, who died in 1973 after more than three decades at the helm of the Dublin archdiocese, crumbled in the tide of child sex scandals. In 2009, his role in covering up abuse was excoriated in a report commissioned by the Irish government and the headline of a commentary in The Irish Times likened him to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. By 2011, abuse allegations surfaced involving him.
甚至连麦夸伊德总主教的声誉都在那一系列丑闻中崩塌了。在执掌都柏林总教区三十多年后,麦夸伊德于1973年逝世。2009年,爱尔兰政府发布了一份报告,严厉谴责麦夸伊德掩盖性丑闻的行为,而《爱尔兰时报》(The Irish Times)的一篇评论文章在标题中把他比作阿亚图拉鲁霍拉·霍梅尼(Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini)。到了2011年,涉及麦夸伊德本人的性侵丑闻也浮出水面。
“The people have changed their relationship with the Catholic Church because they’ve been disappointed and let down,” said Christina Breen, 54, who visited Dublin Castle on Saturday to see the results of the vote, a show of support because one of her sons is gay.
“人民已经改变了他们同天主教会的关系,因为他们深感失望,”54岁的克里斯蒂娜·布林(Christina Breen)说到。周六,克里斯蒂娜来到都柏林城堡查看公投的结果,这是一种支持的表示,因为她的其中一个儿子是同性恋者。
Or, as Mr. Flannery put it, “The day when the church had the power to influence social debate in Ireland, or to swing it, is gone.”
或者如弗兰纳里所说,“教会有能力影响或者动摇爱尔兰社会辩论的日子已经过去。”
The legal system began to chip away at the laws restricting homosexuals. In 1988, a lawyer named Mary Robinson successfully argued a case in the European court system challenging Ireland’s law that made homosexuality a crime. Five years later, after Ms. Robinson became Ireland’s first female president in 1990, she signed a law decriminalizing homosexuality.
法律制度开始瓦解那些制约同性恋的法律。1988年,一位名为玛丽·罗宾逊(Mary Robinson)的律师在欧洲法庭制度下做出了成功抗辩,向将同性恋定为犯罪行为的爱尔兰法律发起了挑战。五年后,也就是罗宾逊成为爱尔兰第一任女性总统五年后,她签署了一部将同性恋非罪化的法律。
At the same time that the church’s moral authority was flagging, the Irish were finding a new identity within the European Union. They share the euro, and are more willing to take advantage of low-cost airfares for weekend jaunts to the Continent and beyond, broadening an outlook that for their parents and grandparents had been molded by the church and Britain.
在教会道德权威衰落的同时,爱尔兰人在欧盟中找到了新的身份。他们和其他国家一起使用欧元,更愿意利用廉价机票到欧洲大陆以及更远的地方进行周末远足,开拓眼界,不像他们的父母、祖父母辈那样深受教会和英国的影响。
Even as it widely celebrates the change that the same-sex marriage vote indicated, Ireland is not entirely beyond the kind of cultural battles that have led to far more contentious political campaigns in the past. Many believe there will be a much more fierce cultural debate over legalizing abortion.
正当大批民众欢庆同性婚姻公投意味着的变革之际,爱尔兰仍存在着文化斗争,这类斗争在过去引发了许多具有争议的政治活动。很多人相信,未来有关堕胎合法化的文化辩论将会更多、更激烈。
With the vote for the same-sex referendum going nearly two to one in favor, Archbishop Martin said Sunday that the church needed what he called “a new language that will be understood and heard by people.” Many young people, he added, “go in today and find a church that is for the like-minded,” as opposed to being inclusive.
同性婚姻公投中赞成与反对的比例接近2:1,对此马丁总主教在周日表示,教会需要“一种能够被人们理解和听到的新语言”。他说很多年轻人“走进来,却发现这个教会只接纳志同道合者”,不具备包容性。
But he did not offer a solution for attracting young people back to the church, and reiterated his opposition to same-sex marriage.
但是他并没有给出如何吸引年轻人重返教会的方法,只是重申了自己对同性婚姻的反对。
“For many, and I’ve said this before, inside the church becomes almost alien territory to them in today’s society,” he said. “If the leadership of the Irish Catholic church don’t recognize that, then they’re in severe denial. Have I got a magic formula? Certainly not.”
“我之前也说过,在很多人看来,教堂成了一个与当下社会隔绝的地带,”他说道。“如果爱尔兰天主教会的领导人无法意识到这一点,那么他们会被大众背弃。我有什么妙方么?当然没有。”

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