Thank God for Civil Weddings | THE BRENDAN OPTION 261

Added: 2026-05-09

[00:00:01][music] In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. You're very welcome to the Brendan option coming to you courtesy of Immaculata Productions. I'm Father Brendan Kilcoin.

[00:00:15]If you like this, would you hit the subscribe button at no cost? Keep us in the prayers and keep the comments coming.

[00:00:23]I want to begin with an apology and a clarification. Uh, I'm sorry you didn't see us for for the last two weeks. Um, very simple explanation. We have a tiny operation and everybody was simply snowed under with their own work. Um, it was as simple as that. We'll try to make sure this doesn't happen much, but it's happened a bit in the past and it may a little again in the future. It's it's just where we are. Okay. Thanks so much for being interested enough to ask uh what the hell we were doing. Okay, that's hugely appreciated. We feel wanted. Right. Well, I'm back. Yeah, I'm back. And um I want to start I want to hit the ground running. I want to start with a bit of a bit of a bang. Yeah. Uh there was an article lately in the Irish independent uh by a youngish um journalist called Sarah Breen and this article is celebrating the fact that for the first time in I think the history of the state or indeed anyone's memory or history at all maybe um the number of civil weddings has has uh exceeded the number of Catholic weddings.

[00:01:42]Now, Miss Breen uh is at pains, considerable pains, quite a long article uh to let us know how satisfied she is with that, indeed how happy indeed I detected a note of joy. Something which she said explicitly. She has never associated Catholic churches with joy.

[00:02:01]Uh I'm not even going to go there. Okay?

[00:02:05]You know, some the gods themselves rage in vain against some things. So, okay.

[00:02:10]So, we just I'm going to leave that there. As I said, the article is long.

[00:02:13]It's quite well quite nicely written.

[00:02:16]You know, it's quite nicely written. um a great deal of it is taking up with what I would I must say I would regard as just virtue signaling you know letting us know that she's she's she's young and she's very much in the stream of things and has her own views which turn out to be views you could find for Tuppens Hony on the side of the road but fine fine duck okay whatever whatever floats your boat you know if you if you want to take absolutely unoriginal and predictable modern liberal secular liberal views uh and call that you know you talk about that as if it were something that you know you had uh almost uh I don't know invented yourself or discovered for yourself then fine uh it it's fairly the artic doesn't really say anything new apart from one thing which is that thing and that's interesting And I find myself uh strangely agreeing with Miss Breen.

[00:03:24]Now, who saw that coming? I find myself in agreement.

[00:03:29]She's breaking out the old chers because um finally the strangle hold, I think that's the phrase she uses, the strangle hold of the church on Irish society has been has been released. Uh I would say to you, Sarah, by the way, I'm not going to go on about it. We never held Irish society in a strangle hold because the British Empire wasn't able to hold this people in a strangle hold. That was what the Irish people wanted. It was who they were, right? You get that through your little head and you'll you'll make a lot more sense in your articles. Yeah. There was no strangle hold. It only became to it only came to appear so uh as Irish societies started to sniff the air and think that perhaps it might wish to do things differently. Then suddenly it was a strangle hold. Before that it was what everyone thought or most people thought.

[00:04:23]In those days it took real courage to stand up to us. Now, uh, it doesn't take much courage, but apparently the Indo is is loaded with cash and they're perfectly well able to pay a stack of money for a kind of bland enough article that a bright leaving Sir could have turned out. But look, who am I to say it's a living? Yeah, it's a living. So, what the hell?

[00:04:48]I am thrilled about this.

[00:04:51]I am thrilled about it. Yeah, because what it says to me is that at long last, integrity and honesty are coming to play a part in the way Irish people choose to do their business. Dare I say even a measure of courage. And I'm very slow to say that. Not because I regard my own people as being somehow cowardly or anything like that, but because I regard the terms like coward, hero, all the rest of it, as being very actually describing quite complex things. And I'm slow to give the decoration of hero to anyone starting with myself. And I'm slow to pin coward on anyone. Yeah. But I would have to say that as far as I can make out there is an air of I don't know something new and that's good. I agree with Miss Breen. That's good. It is good. Not because Catholic churches are strangers to joy. I think that's a uniquely stupid comment. Yeah.

[00:05:55]Not because Catholic churches are foreign to joy. That's nonsense. Or joy is foreign to them. But because people who do not believe in the faith and here's this this is crucial who do not believe because this isn't being talked about near enough do not believe that marriage is a permanent institution and perhaps do not even believe that it involves an exclusive relationship is that people in that situation of whom many I'm sure do believe in those things people in that situation have decided to [snorts] find rituals that express their genuine real philosophy of life and the way they are actually living. [snorts] That is refreshing.

[00:06:42]It's like a dash of cold water to the face. It's like getting out of a fated atmosphere in some overheated room and feeling uh a blast of good Irish wet cold rain in your face. Yeah, that is refreshing.

[00:07:00]That is a taste of freedom. Dare I say, I only wish that this wonderful example, and God bless those who are giving it, that this wonderful example would now be followed with respect to first communion and confirmation.

[00:07:18]Yeah, I've said this before. I'm sure who pays a bit of heat to me. I've said maybe they'll listen to Miss Breen. I don't know. Don't think she goes on much about that. It's more marriage she's talking about. Yeah. Oh, by the way, the she she the priests can be unpredictable and and uh quite dodgery. There you go.

[00:07:38]There you go. Well, speaking as one daughtering Catholic priest, yeah. Um I I would have to say that I relish and exalt in this, not in the thing itself.

[00:07:50]I would prefer that people were believers. I'm not going to say that I would prefer they were married in church. I would prefer that people were believers. and in that light married in church.

[00:08:01]Now Pope St. John Paul I remember in the was it familiaris consortia 40 years ago or more said well you know if people come to you they want to get married in church but they're not practicing or whatever you know marry them marriages of the natural law and then we can catechize them and all the rest. I mean no disrespect to that great saint who was such an influence on so many of us in this time. No disrespect whatever when I say that events have overtaken that. I think events have overtaken it and that's not working.

[00:08:32]Okay. Catechizing modern people is like trying to catch the the the traditional greased pig at a fair. Okay. It's much harder than it looks. Yeah. It's there is a serious gap now.

[00:08:49]very serious cultural gap based on different philosophical premises that's there. It's real. People don't believe anymore.

[00:09:02]And so I welcome what Miss Breen is is relaying to us, the information she's sending to us. She tells us, by the way, that young people uh are not taking, you know, they're much wearier of the church. Now, that's fair enough. Um, and they're wait till you hear this. They're watching Tomb closely.

[00:09:19]Sarah, they don't seem to be watching Tune closely enough. Yeah, because I'm watching Tune closely. Yeah, admittedly with these aging eyes with the help of with the help of some some some good glasses. Yeah. What's happening in Chum and the reports coming back from the authorities who are doing the excavations seems to me to be much more complicated much more complicated than what was being pedled in papers like your own for long enough. Okay, I'll just leave that with you. They can watch tune by all means. But if you're going to watch tune, watch tune. Watch tune closely.

[00:10:01]Jeepers, they can hardly watch Netflix closely.

[00:10:05]Sorry.

[00:10:07]This is good. You hear me? This is good.

[00:10:12]Don't panic about this. Don't regard it as necessarily a negative. This is good.

[00:10:17]This is integrity. This is rough, tough honesty. This is making decisions and sticking by them as long as you believe them to be right. This can only do good.

[00:10:30]And it can only do good for the church as well. And I don't mean I don't mean any offense to people who don't share our faith. Okay? But to to to actually articulate your philosophy, your genuine view on things in rituals like this is crucial. They are not insignificant. And now you can get it done beautifully.

[00:10:53]It's like not like the old days, you know, where you I don't know, you stood in a registry office and and the registar threw a cloud of smoke, you know, listened to your vows and that was it. Okay, it was all over. No, no, no.

[00:11:05]You can get married now on the beach.

[00:11:07]You can get married up on the top of a mountain. You can get married uh I don't know, hangliding. You can get married uh what's that thing where they jump off bridges with something tied to their foot?

[00:11:18]Bungee. Bungee. You can you can you can I well I don't know that actually but I imagine you can get married bungee jumping if you find a registar with a strong stomach. Okay, you can do all sorts of stuff, right? You can do all sorts of stuff if you do not believe in the Lord Jesus and you do not actually believe in a future. Okay, and I don't blame you. If I didn't believe in a future and I were getting married, I might get married to, you know, I might get married to bungee jumping or something, you know. I don't blame you.

[00:11:49]Okay, so you have to have an alrill.

[00:11:52]Yeah. What are you going to do?

[00:11:55]Listen, my thanks to the Irish Independent, my thanks, qualified, rather tepid thanks to Sarah Breen. And my thanks to you for waiting for us. This is good news. Do not panic. No Catholic needs to rush upstairs to change their undies.

[00:12:15]Okay? This is good news. Keep your nerve. Yeah, this will work to everyone's advantage in the long term.

[00:12:24]It's win-win on both sides.

[00:12:29]And [clears throat] how often does that happen? Huh? No, no, no. Next of Confirmation. Next up, uh, first communion. Let's get some good Irish [gasps] partial honesty going here. Okay, let's start to suck a a few drops of diesel, right? Let's get this moving. Let's get this party started.

[00:12:56]In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.