Cardinal Kasper's Majority Rule

A few weeks ago, after Ireland voted to approve so-called “same-sex marriage,” a correspondent sent me an e-mail quoting Cardinal Walter Kasper’s comment on the result: “A democratic state has the duty to respect the will of the people, and it seems clear that, if the majority of the people wants such homosexual unions, the state has a duty to recognize such rights.” I certainly hope the cardinal was either misquoted or mistranslated. For that comment, taken at face value, would suggest that a distinguished theologian-bishop has seriously misunderstood the nature of democracy and the Church’s teaching about just political communities.