Secular Wedding Services Have Huge Backlog In Catholic Ireland

[SecularMotion]

Traditionally Catholic Ireland has allowed an atheist group to perform weddings this year for the first time, and the few people certified to celebrate them are overwhelmed by hundreds of couples seeking their services.

Demand for the Humanist Association of Ireland's secular weddings has surged as the moral authority of the once almighty Catholic Church collapsed in recent decades amid sex abuse scandals and Irish society's rapid secularization.

Until now, those who did not want a religious wedding could have only civil ceremonies. Outside of the registrar's office, only clergy were permitted to perform weddings.

But statistics show rising demand for non-Church weddings. In 1996, 90 percent of Irish weddings were performed by the Catholic Church or the Church of Ireland. But by 2010 that percentage had fallen to 69 percent.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/23/secular-wedding-ireland_n_3639124.html

[rug]

1. The article inaccurately calls the Humanist Association of Ireland an atheist group.

The Humanist Association of Ireland (HAI) is a national organisation that promotes the ideals and values of Humanism, working for people who choose to live an ethical life without religion. The HAI grew from and replaced the Association of Irish Humanists (AIH), which was founded in 1993 and renamed in 2004.

If you live in Ireland and are an atheist, agnostic, freethinker, rationalist, secularist, sceptic; do not believe in a god, are non-religious and/or have no belief in the supernatural – Humanism may just interest you!

http://humanism.ie/about-us/

[cbayer]

2. Sounds like they need to certify more celebrants.

Should be interesting to see what kind of interfaith marriages and ceremonies come out of this as well.

I am glad they have been given options other than a purely civil ceremony and these bogus "chaplains" who got their licenses from some mocking on-line company.