Bishop still hasn’t met LGBT

The Bishop of Galway has not yet met with representatives of the lesbian and gay community after he criticised their ‘morally wrong’ behaviour. Bishop Martin Drennan has since rowed back on comments made by him following a decision by the St Vincent de Paul Society to give them a €45,000 grant towards the provision of a resource centre for the LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender) community support group, Amach! The grant came out of the Society’s Maureen O’Connell Fund (a bequest left by a city publican) and was given on the basis that Galway City Council would provide a premises. Bishop Drennan then wrote to SVP seeking reasons behind the funding after queries were made to the Diocesan Office and he hinted that the donation could affect the relationship between the Society and the Catholic Church. Speaking on Galway Bay FM some weeks ago, Bishop Drennan said he had a problem with the moral judgement involved in making the decision to give a donation to a group that “promotes that kind of culture.” SVP stressed that the grant had come from their special funds and not from public collections. However, the Bishop since admitted he might have got it “badly wrong” following calls for him to resign over his initial remarks. Nuala Ward, Vice Chairperson of Amach! issued an invitation to the Bishop to meet so she could answer his queries over the group, what they were, how they got together and their plans for the future. But by yesterday the Bishop hadn’t taken up that invitation. Ms Ward said the invitation was still on the table. “We haven’t heard from the Bishop since he made those comments though he appears to have rowed back on them.”