Church and open debate on divorce

The steady decline over the last 50 years in the standing of one of Malta’s great institutions is a matter for concern. Whether this has been caused by the Maltese Church’s inability to adapt to the refreshing winds of change signalled by the Vatican II Council or by a general dearth of men of calibre to fill posts in the higher reaches of the Church is a matter best left to the ecclesiastical historians.

What is abundantly clear, however, is that what was once a force for good in Maltese society has lost its way, brought low essentially by the temptation for a declining Church to try to hang on to old privileges. The Maltese Church is losing whatever remains of its grip on society at an accelerating pace.

Nowhere is this phenomenon more starkly highlighted than in the recent statement by no less a figure than the Pro Vicar General – number three in the Maltese Church’s hierarchy – that a Catholic who voted in favour of divorce (presumably, either in Parliament or in a referendum) would be committing a mortal sin.

To accept that what Mgr Anton Gouder said had any validity or credibility in the debate about divorce, or any other debate, on the basis of the committing of mortal sin by those who would vote for re-marriage after legal separation, the Church must also accept – as the clerical child abuse cases have shown – that it does not hold a monopoly on establishing moral foundations in society, as it claims, far less the right to condemn those it disagrees with by declaring them to be “in a state of sin”.

If the Maltese Church teaches absolute moral values it will be held to absolute moral standards. Its record on clerical abuse, and its altogether more flexible position over the “indissolubility” of priestly vows, which supposedly commit them to a life-long contract with God, however, lead in an opposite direction – and to a justifiable charge of hypocrisy.

In his first encyclical letter, Pope Benedict XVI defined very clearly that “The just ordering of society and the state is a central responsibility of politics… A just society must be the achievement of politics not of the Church”. No mention there by the Pope that one was committing a mortal sin if the state reached a conclusion that justice in society required a different approach from the doctrine espoused by the Church – on the contrary, an acceptance that society could sometimes do so.

In an enlightened article soon after becoming Archbishop, Mgr Paul Cremona made it clear that, although the Catholic Church in Malta had a valid contribution to make to the debate on divorce, it would not seek to interfere – as opposed to participate – in this process because this is fundamental to ensuring that legislators and society are not placed under duress when considering this issue.

No mention there, either, by the Archbishop of committing a mortal sin if one voted for divorce. Indeed, the Archbishop is on public record, on several occasions, in advocating that there should be a free, open and “informed debate” on this sensitive issue.

What kind of “informed debate” is it, therefore, that the Pro Vicar General has in mind when, instead of the force of rational argument, people find themselves threatened by some form of fatwa for voting the way their conscience and intelligence tell them? Clerics like Mgr Gouder do the Maltese Church a grave disservice with this kind of heavy-handed, absolutist and wrong-headed utterance.

Not only is the Pro Vicar General prepared to sanction – in worrying echoes of the 1960s – anyone who dares to disagree with the Church on a social issue of such complexity under pain of mortal sin but he is also apparently prepared to break Maltese electoral law by “threatening spiritual harm to induce a person to vote one way or another in an election or referendum”.

The Archbishop needs personally to exercise the leadership we all felt he might bring to his great ministry when he ascended to the archbishopric by ensuring that the Church plays a more constructive role – and thereby earns greater respect – by engaging positively in a dialogue with legislators in Parliament to ensure that Malta adopts the best legislative process for the introduction of re-marriage after legal separation and civil dissolution. With a waning public respect for the Maltese Church, he cannot afford a purely doctrinal view on this vital social issue.