Christian Peregin
Muslims and Catholics unite against gay marriage but disagree on divorce
From left: Imam Muhammed El Sadi; head of Islamic Centres Ammar Hreba; Archbishop Paul Cremona and Maltese Muslim Mario Farrugia Borg. Photo: Darrin Zammit Lupi
Muslim and Catholic preachers yesterday discussed the role of the family in a globalised society, uniting against same-sex marriages and the "negative" media but disagreeing on divorce and polygamy.
Journalists were only allowed to sit in for the seminar's opening speeches by Archbishop Paul Cremona and the head of the Islamic Centres and Propagation Bureau, Ammar Hreba, who both chastised the press for its promulgation of negative ideas.
In a paper prepared and presented by Imam Muhammed el Sadi, homosexuality was lambasted as "unnatural, immoral, unhealthy and fruitless" while divorce was described as something Islam "does not like" and therefore allows "only" twice.
"For divorce to be valid it should be based on true intention. A forced divorce is not valid nor that of an intoxicated or an enraged person. The divorce should not take place during the woman's monthly period or her period of purity if the husband has sexual relations with her," the Muslim leader's paper read.
Mgr Cremona said: "Most countries in the West are secularised, if not secularist. This means the Church has to convince society of the importance of family."
He said the destruction of a family affected the state negatively, even in economic terms, while stable relationships gave a great contribution, especially through the upbringing of children.
Mgr Cremona called on the state to help prepare couples for marriage, particularly because so many were choosing to get married civilly.
"We also need to use the media to promote messages in favour of stability of marriages and family. Many aspects of the media give negative ideas of what true love is."
He stressed that marriage was between a man and a woman where each was a gift from God to the other. In marriage, a couple promised to honour, love and respect each other "till death do them part".
Mr Hreba was even more critical of the media and homosexuality.
"If we neglect our religion based on the negative direction of the media, this will lead to violence. If we let the family collapse, there will be catastrophe and destruction. Same-sex marriage destroys the entity of the family which began with Adam and Eve," he said, emphasising the importance of tolerance and dialogue between religions and cultures.
Mario Farrugia Borg, a member of the World Islamic Call Society Malta branch, which organised the seminar, pointed out that Muslims and Catholics had "so much in common" regarding their views on the family.
Despite the "new challenges which did not exist 30 and 40 years ago", the fact that the Catholic and Muslim communities were meeting to discuss this issue was a positive sign, he noted.
A number of theologians from both faiths were present for the rest of the discussion which was held behind closed doors and focused on four papers, including the one written by the Imam. Sources said their concluding statement described the family as a natural institution between man and woman but did not say it was a permanent bond.
Factbox
Excerpts from paper by Imam Muhammed El Sadi.
• No human society can ever manage without the family system, which organises the relations between men and women for posterity.
• In Islamic law, there is absolutely no room for same-sex marriages... they contradict the family values and endanger the family system.
• Adultery leads to the birth of illegitimate children, causes fatal diseases and abortion.
• Islam's attitude towards the family and the legislation of divorce and polygamy may seem contradictory but in fact these support the family system if carried out properly and justly. Polygamy means forming a new family and providing care for another woman. Divorce means forming a new, stable family instead of the former broken one.
• Islam does not like divorce and tries to prevent it in different ways and considers it only when there are no chances to avoid it as a necessity, not as a privilege.
• Islam permits polygamy to solve some social problems like the presence of many widows and orphans after war and cases of barren women and those who fail to satisfy the sexual need of their husbands.
• Men must provide for their families... he uses his reason more than emotion and has more experience in life affairs due to his various wide connections with people and businesses. This leadership of the family in no way means that man is the master and the woman his slave; rather, it means more responsibility, care and service towards the family.
• Islam obliges the husband to maintain his wife and children completely. The wife is not obliged to work or share financial burdens of the family.
• The main job of the wife is to care for her home, husband and children. The husband should consult his wife, advise her to be a better Muslim and satisfy her sexual needs.
• Globalisation imposes pressure on all religions to change certain teachings in order to satisfy certain international charters and groups. (But) we cannot change the teachings of God or update them... We believe the laws of God are perfect.
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Dr Francis Saliba
Jun 29th 2010, 11:47
@CharlesGrixti
Nothing, but nothing, gives me more satisfaction than reducing an antireligious opponent to the vulgarity of personal insult, accusing me of being a “brainwashed, close-minded and intolerant religious fanatic”. I take that as an admission that he is bereft of logical arguments.
Joe Xuereb
Jun 27th 2010, 19:04
Andrija. @ Farrugia, Andrew. you forgot NAKED, Andrew, you forgot NAKED. Bottoms up!
Andrew Farrugia
Jun 27th 2010, 15:24
@XUEREB
Let me see if you agree with my mind-blowing discovery: ONE of us, either you or me, is STARK, STARING, RAVING, MAD: i will give you the benefit of having the first attempt at the lucky bag. Cheers.
Joe Xuereb
Jun 26th 2010, 21:10
Instead of nit-picking why don't you say something useful about the unfolding disaster. Bitter enemies sitting at a table, discussing that most common of phenomenons especially in societies where women are reduced to a self-serving commodity - if you see what I mean. Do you desist because you would find that head-reeling indeed? Instead of banal attacks like 'we're all human, so what's the big deal about Humanism?'. Really?! Or homosexuals hijacking the word gay? Sick societies endorsed by even sicker churches usurped the word 'queer'. Is that OK Saliba. The days when homosexuals cowered are over thank god. And whatever I say ad nauseam is not for your benefit for others who see a homosexual speak out and not disintegrate, one who commits sacrilege and does not drop dead.
Saliba, I will stop hitting the keyboard when you start hitting it and amuse me - never mind most everyone else - by telling me something positive of your belief. A` la Joe Zammit maybe? And don't nauseate me. Once is enough. Now get crackin'!
Dr Francis Saliba
Jun 27th 2010, 06:45
@JoeXuereb
Open your eyes to realize that I have been hitting one keyboard or another for many years. Now please keep your promise to stop hitting yours or at least to engage your brain into gear beforehand.
Charles Grixti
Jun 28th 2010, 14:11
@Dr. Francis Saliba I can tell from your input in these blogs that the only gear that you can engage is the only one you have, that is 'the brainwashed, close-minded and intolerant religious fanatic gear'.
Joe Xuereb
Jun 26th 2010, 12:19
If people are trying to salvage what's left of the charade that is religion, they certainly are going about it the wrong way. Zammit, take note. In other words, the religious are digging themselves ever deeper into a hole. There is turmoil. There will be more. When you, the people see your standard bearer align itself with your historical enemy. I wonder why Malta is being punished so? Surely a loving god would have worked it out differently. Oh I forgot! We have free will. And in the last resort, there is always that biblical last resort. I am talking of course of the fear and the last resort cop out. I am talking, as if you didn't know, of the ever convenient scapegoat. And scapegoats have this habit of coming back to haunt the perpetrators who offloaded their confusion onto a helpless creature. Very biblical that. Very genesis.
This happens time and again because, within religious cults, independent thinking isn't encouraged, nay! it's forbidden. This leaves the people 'innocent', infantile, malleable like putty. Eternal damnation - never mind eternal bliss! - is a very strong winning card to play. They keep it up their dressy folds, ever ready.
malcolm seychell
Jun 26th 2010, 10:29
Hehe so the arcbishop agrees how women are treated in islam
tajjeb tajjeb mela nisa ghal kcina, sex u tiehu hsieb ragel u tfal :)
At least Islam tells you what they really believe. Christians shows tollerance only for convenience so they try to avoid clashes with the media.
Joe Zammit
Jun 26th 2010, 03:49
Gay marriage is a contradiction. Marriage is only between one man and one woman for ever. So, no divorce.
Gays must be conscious of their sinful life that separates them from God and puts them on the way to hell. There is absolutely no case of being proud of this miserable life. God does not want this life. And that is enough to convince us of the great need of helping homosexuals come out of their unnatural and sinful life. Others have converted by God's all-powerful grace. You can as well!
Joe Xuereb
Jun 25th 2010, 23:24
To anyone hang up on god's gift to man, his necessary sexual drive to propagate, and how at times, this manifests itself in homosexuality (but god moves in mysterious ways you're told), here's is a little stocking-filler.
It's so sweet to talk of a man sexually satisfying his wife for thirty/forty/fifty plus years. I
In/fidelity. If sex were the equivalent of filling an empty stomach, this might work with provisos. Sex is a bit more visceral than that. Much more. Sexual urges have a mind of their own. We all know that men deprived of women, in marriage often reduced to nul points, do all sorts of things and tend to lay with anything that moves. Not very nice but there you are! It's so easy for the unworldly to spout about men satisfying women forever and ever. If only it were that simple. Of course fear - and vacuous promises - can make a man (and woman) rein in their loins. But it's not very healthy. It sows the seed of sexual neurosis, the basis, according to psychosexual theorists, of all neuroses. You have been warned. And no, there are no heavenly virgins. There are no bodies you see.
C. Farrugia
Jun 25th 2010, 17:42
**• Islam permits polygamy to solve some social problems like the presence of many widows and orphans after war and cases of barren women and those who fail to satisfy the sexual need of their husbands.** This type of reasoning is laughable to the point of tears!!! Purely ONE-SIDED sexist egotism!! So what about the women who are NOT satisfied by their husbands? Shouldn't they ALSO be allowed to have multiple husbands? All's fair is love and war...or is it NOT?
Joe Xuereb
Jun 25th 2010, 17:04
2) And none of this, needless to say, is assailable by homosexuality and its privileged followers. I mean that.
Homosexuality must not be seen as a separate nexus. There are grey areas. There are overlappings. This is god's design, I promise you.
Religions are hang up about human sexuality, a god-given, paradoxically. But to legislate against something god-given is both futile and ungrateful to the giver. By now my head is reeling, just like yours. Religion says, 'don't' and you'll luxuriate in His presence'. And he will welcome, wagging a finger, 'why did you disrespect my gift? why did you not educate yourself with the brain I gave you? why did you listen to a church which distorted my message something terrible? I've a good mind to send you back, but you suffered enough down there. And before you ask, no! there ain't no virgins in heaven. There ain't none. Punto e bast. Don't ask again. Draw up a cushion, bring that harp. You, stubby-fingers,, you'll play it like a virtuoso angel, you're in heaven nowa'. Talking of angels, 'Angel, bring him a juice, like pronto'.
Dr Francis Saliba
Jun 26th 2010, 10:02
@JoeXuereb
I agree with you that there is ample evidence that by now your "head is reeling". When you get that feeling coukl you please stop hitting the keyboard - unless it your intention to make everyone else just as vertiginously nauseated!
Charles Grixti
Jun 25th 2010, 16:50
Stop these meddlers. They have done enough damage and shed so much blood in the centuries that they have existed!
In a just and sane world, both should have been banned and outlawed a long time ago. They are both not compatible with the Declaration of Universal Human Rights. This cannot be disputed but our politicos find their help in controlling and subduing dissent, being as they always are at the right hand of power or even the State themselves, indispensible.
Joe Xuereb
Jun 25th 2010, 16:43
1) Homosexuality occurs naturally. Homosexual liaisons don't usually produce children. Homosexuals have sexual/amorous feelings and act upon them. The attraction gets the ball rolling and sex becomes secondary. In all this, homosexuality is exactly like heterosexuality, but for the propagation (as in chicken factories). But, with the majority of heterosexual encounters, the thought of having a baby is furthest from the partecipants' mind. They do it for pleasure, to meet (get the ball rolling, see above), consolidate relationships. Mostly, therefore, people are behaving exactly like homosexuals. And this is what the Church and Islam, I presume, are worried about. They want us to only do missionary and think of the heaven to come. Always within marriage. And the more subservient the woman, the more she satisfies her husband's sexual needs for forty/fifty/sixty years even, the more children she'll have, the more she'll please god. And none of this, needless to say, is assailable by homosexuality and its privileged followers. I mean that.
continue
Raymond Cachia
Jun 25th 2010, 16:30
What more proof is needed that Islam and Catholicism are joined at the hip?
They see eye to eye on many issues, and vote in tandem in all the international conferences where they are represented. Both religions have an inborn hatred and fear of Jews and women, seeing the latter as an imperfect facsimile of that God-like perfect creature - the male, and both see women essentially as just baby-making machines. Then there is the fact that they both abhor the separation of Church and State and are always in favour any form of Fascist Theocracy.
U hallina Cremona - don't you know how many Christians are being murdered as we speak by your friends in the 'religion of peace'? By the way, if you don't want any negative media, the Catholic clergy should stop molesting little boys and Muslims should stop chopping heads and inciting hatred and committing terrorist attacks around the world.
Joseph Calleja
Jun 25th 2010, 16:11
"Islam permits polygamy to solve some social problems." How convenient for the man. This is against any other law or religion. What did the Mgr have to say to that? Does same apply to women? Divorce was described as something Islam "does not like" and therefore allows "only" twice. Yet Malta does not allow any. Does Islam allow the man to beat on a woman with a stick or otherwise to punish her? I believe this is common practice with some Muslim men.
I am on the impression that all marriages in Malta have to be married civilly. Getting married by the church is by choice. And since when does the State have to prepare couples for marriage? The State has enough trouble keeping their own affairs together.
"This means the Church has to convince society of the importance of family." Isn't that what the church is supposed to do?Again the church has enough trouble keeping their own in line.
"A couple promised to honour, love and respect each other "till death do them part". Most Gays and lesbians promise to do the same thing. Is that wrong? Does the church condemn cohabitation? What a waste of meeting
Mary Smith
Jun 25th 2010, 17:52
But wait, Islam does allow divorce, but under Sharia there is great discrimination against the woman and her rights. The children are also considered chattel and are given to the man. I should know, as I have worked in Family Court in Canada and cannot tell you how many times Muslims come in Court enraged that their wife is getting equal treatment under the law and most try to get their wives back to the ‘old country’ for a divorce Sharia style. Now the Church is against Divorce for precisely this reason, that in a modern secular society, the woman and mother is given fair treatment and the children are usually kept with their mother unless evidence can be provided that she is an unfit mother. The ex-husband has to provide for the children until adults and beyond. Both being misogynist organizations, I bet the Church would have no problem with divorce Sharia style, but since it knows that it cannot have it that way in a Western country like Malta, it will continue to oppose divorce since over 90% of divorces are petitioned by women. And yes, Islam allows Polygamy, Child-marriages and wife-beating.
Dr Ing Patrick Attard
Jun 25th 2010, 14:41
This is completely outrageous. I hope that the Malta Labour Party (excluding Adrian Vassallo) will issue a very strong statement.
Kevin Smith
Jun 25th 2010, 13:33
If a picture can convey a thousand words,Archbishop Cremona's body language is saying all of them-despondent being the first. If any word can conjure up loathing when used in conjunction with religion,then that word must be propagation.
Franco Farrugia
Jun 25th 2010, 16:46
Yeah, how right you are. It really shows how much at home he's feeling on that table, and how much he is enjoying himself. And rightly so, too, may I add.
John Azzopardi
Jun 25th 2010, 12:09
How come no on is commenting on the banners behind our archbishop and the Iman. The arabic language is on top, followed by english below it. Where is the Maltese. Isn't this a maltese nation full of maltese speaking people who are in the EU where our language is recognized. Shame on all the participants. The archbishop was used for this forum. He should never have participated. The catholic church preaches a lot, but at the end of the day, it tends to be inclusive and that is the difference between catholic and muslims. Let's all wake up to all this marraige of convenience between Muslims and catholics before it's too late.
Christopher Pollard
Jun 25th 2010, 12:00
Just how do "same sex marriages endanger the family system"?
Gay and lesbian people come from families and, as far as I know, are not trying to destroy their parents. They form relationships with other gay and lesbian people who surely aren't going to be in the marriage market for hetero marriage. Gay and lesbian people, far from undermining, provide support for other family members - perhaps that's why evolution hasn't got rid of us yet!
I'd welcome a response which doesn't quote the Bible or the Church at me, if possible.
Charles Sammut
Jun 25th 2010, 11:55
I have far more respect for a morally upright atheist than the most fervent religious person. To the former, doing what is right is second nature. The latter does it because he is afraid of eternal damnation. The former is genuine, the latter is artificial if not fake.
Emma Xerri
Jun 25th 2010, 17:27
Could not have said it any better myself!! Give me the Secular Atheists any day - most progress that humanity has made through the centuries was made thanks to them (some kept secret their lack of belief because of persecution). They brought us the Enlightenment after centuries under the thumb of the Church with its Dark Ages.
Eric Gahn
Jun 25th 2010, 11:20
Muslim countries do not accept homosexuality and in some places they are jailed and even executed. Does paul Cremona propose the same with this affiliation?
Franco Farrugia
Jun 25th 2010, 12:55
Mr Gahn, it all boils down to the fact that these people are trying to force the legislators of our State into not passing certain legislations. This is the serious problem that is coming out. Whether you or I like it or not, people have a right to live according to the way they feel best, and they cannot be held responsible for some pseudo breaking up of the fabric of society, of the family, and so forth. The very fact that we even have Muslims being invited on the table where people are trying to push legislators into submission, is in itself condemnable! This is a veiled attack on the State itself, but nobody will listen.
Emma Xerri
Jun 25th 2010, 16:27
And they are both hypocrites.
These two organizations are rife both with homosexuality and paedophilia!
Kevin Smith
Jun 25th 2010, 11:12
I am assuming that the closed door session included discussions on the vengeful and vindictive slant of the one religion and the stifling, pedophile nature of the other. Maybe not.
Ramon Casha
Jun 25th 2010, 10:42
It's sad that almost the only thing these two major religions can agree about is their shared hate of certain minorities, like homosexuals.
Mgr Cremona said: "Most countries in the West are secularised, if not secularist. This means the Church has to convince society of the importance of family."
So you're saying that secular people give the family less importance than religious ones? Nothing could be further from the truth.
Franco Farrugia
Jun 25th 2010, 10:41
There is so much TRASH - no better word for it - coming out from this sort-of-conference that I have hardly any words left in me to describe me. What I can only say is that I cannot in any way relate anymore with Archbishop Paul Cremona. In my esteem, he has sunk down further than any of his predecessors, even by his very presence - let alone by his words - in this pseudo-conference, 'uniting against same-sex marriages' and so on forth. No wonder the Muslims lambasted the media because in their sphere, the media is under pressure and there is no freedom of expression. Readers, notice also the penultimate point and two points above that one, of the Factbox, and reflect on them. These are the people with which Cremona is associating himself with, in his quest to further try and pathetically stop the State from passing particular legislation! Once again: shame on you, bishop!