The Church's constitutional duty

The Constitution of Malta gives the Catholic Church a very delicate and, one must say, difficult role which it cannot ignore nor can it overplay. The highest and most fundamental law of Malta spells it out very clearly: "The authorities of the Roman Catholic Apostolic Church shall have the duty and the right to teach which principles are right and which are wrong".

This "duty" referred to by the Constitution is still intended to avoid precisely what is being whispered around and, in some instances, more than whispered, namely, that the Church must forget the fundamental role it has and has had in forging both the Maltese nation, which has existed for thousands of years, as well as the Maltese culture, which is the heritage of all of us lay persons, both Catholics and non-Catholics.

This recognition does not in any manner make of Malta a fundamentalist state because the Constitution itself prohibits such a thing from happening by ensuring the observance in full of fundamental human rights, particularly where the freedoms of expression and religious beliefs are concerned.

The Constitution recognises that the two values of lay and Catholic thought must co-exist without one wiping the other out. In many societies, even European, this delicate balance is fast going missing; in the name of so-called political correctness. States are increasingly shying away from making any reference to Christian cultural values including such traditional ones as Christmas or even Christmas calendars.

These are serious menaces to the national cohesion of a country. In fact, these so-called politically correct ideas have complicated the very ethnic co-existence in their own societies. And to many, such as the United Kingdom, the very values which previously could define what being British meant are being blurred to the point of non-existence.

Our Constitution has proven more than wise in this regard.

It has ensured that the Catholic Church will not be thrown back into any cultural catacombs where even the wearing of a cross by staff of a foreign national airline was recently forbidden in the name of political correctness.

The Constitution wants and orders that Malta be and remains without any compromise a lay state with fundamental human rights as the one and true ideology of the state. This means that all religions are publicly practised and that there exists the free circulation of ideas and beliefs, each and everyone protected and allowed to compete with one another through the free media.

But it also wants that being lay does not in any manner impede the Church from carrying its constitutional duty and be part of the said free competition of ideas. What use is it for us Maltese to identify ourselves culturally with the village festas centred around the Church's saints and then to ask the Church to shut up and become irrelevant in any social debate?

The Church has long accepted that its position will never revert to what it was even as recently as 40 years ago and this simply because the Constitution ensures that it will not become so again. This, however, does not mean that the Church does not carry out its constitutional duties in terms of the Constitution itself.

All this is being said because there does exist a sector of our society which would love to relegate the Church back to the catacombs of ideas. Why, for example, should there be so much abuse levelled at the Gift of Life group as being "zealots" wanting to "impose" by presenting civil liberties and religion as being in "dire conflict"? After all, these are nothing else but a group of decent civilised citizens who are proposing that our Constitution accepts and recognises what in effect all sectors of Maltese society accept unanimously, namely, that abortion is not acceptable and is not to become legal? Where is the "dire conflict" between civil liberties and religion they are accused of wanting to impose?

We may agree or disagree as to the formula which Gift of Life is proposing or even whether there should be at all a constitutional provision on abortion. But how can we possibly accept as civilised society the churning out of verbal abuse and moral aggression in their regard?

Having carried out its duty, it is then entirely up to us lay persons, both Catholics and non, to evaluate the Church's position together with that of all the other social components forming civil society and in the spirit of co-existence attempt to work out solutions in the full respect of our national heritage and identity and the observance of fundamental human rights.

That is the way forward.