Mario Farrugia (July 31) expressed doubts about the commitment to life-long marriage. He put forward a number of questions for which he seeks an answer. Failed marriages are a fact of life. So, in this article, I do not venture to come up with answers to Mr Farrugia’s questions based on more than 50 years of married life in the course of which, like most married couples, my wife and I countered life’s inevitable ups and downs with prayer and dialogue between us.
I feel a more effective way is to broaden the ongoing divorce debate by drawing attention to the most significant document the Holy See has ever issued on marriage and the family. I refer to Pope John Paul II’s exhortation entitled Familiaris Consortio promulgated in November 1981. Even then the Pope had foreseen the negative trends aimed at destroying the foundations of the family as a result of the widespread adoption of divorce legislation. Various contributors to this newspaper have argued the case for or against the adoption in Malta of such legislation. Due to space limitations, I intend simply to refresh readers’ memories on some salient points of Pope John Paul II’s exhortation.
The Pope started by recognising that, despite the changes in the way of life, many families did adhere to “those values that constitute the foundation of the institution of the family”. The Pope also addressed the situation of divorced and remarried persons and went on to assure his readers that, through the gospel and its modern presentation, the Church does have the answers to modern questions. Having said that, he pointed out the dangers of falling victim to some very appealing but false ideas and solutions, contrary to the gospel, which are offered through “the powerful and persuasive organisation of the means of social communication”.
When commenting on certain modern negative phenomena threatening the very existence of the family in modern society, the Pope specifically mentioned a mistaken concept of the independence of spouses from each other. Having explained various forces of evil that cause marriage breakdowns, the Pope noted that the faithful cannot be immune to the situation in which they live. More and more of the faithful divorce and remarry. More and more accept a mere civil ceremony as sufficient for marriage. More and more marry without a living faith.
The Pope declared unequivocally that marriage is not an imposition of a form by some outside authority. No human person may ever be treated as a thing, as something to be used. Thus, conjugal love does not exist if the gift of the man and the woman is not until “death do us part”, the wedding promise. When a man and a woman enter into a lifelong union of love, they are acting as God acts. The Pope bases this on the fact that, as we are images of God, we are called to do what He does. The spouses have promised to surrender themselves to one another as God has given himself to His people. Adultery is a symbol of the people’s infidelity to their God. Marriage involves sacrifices and cannot be lived without grace. The Pope discusses the times and forms of familial prayer and made a strong endorsement of the family Rosary.
An entire section of the exhortation is devoted to pastoral care of the family in difficulty, especially to families in irregular marital situations. The Pope strongly condemned trial marriages, which are not permanent because the spouses only intend to test each other.
Then, the Pope returns to the divorced and remarried. “The Church... cannot abandon to their own devices those who have been previously bound by sacramental marriage and who have attempted a second marriage. The Church will always try to bring these people the graces necessary for salvation”. He distinguishes between “those who have sincerely tried to save their first marriage and have been unjustly abandoned and those who, through their own grave fault, have destroyed a canonically valid marriage”. Also, the case of those who have entered into a second union for the sake of their children or because they are “subjectively certain in their conscience that their previous and irreparably destroyed marriage had never been valid”.
The Pope concludes with an extraordinary statement: “Those who have rejected the Lord’s command and are still living in this state will be able to obtain from God the grace of conversion and salvation, provided that they have preserved in prayer, penance and charity”. In effect, Pope John Paul II assured the divorced and remarried that God will find a solution to their particular problem if they continue to pray, do penance and practise charity.
The divorced and remarried can take solace from this statement coming from the highest authority of the Church but, obviously, the conditions attached thereto cannot be taken too lightly. The Church’s teaching, based on scripture, against divorce is well known. The Archbishop has already stated that the local Church will not get involved in any crusade against the introduction of divorce legislation but it has a duty to evangelise, based on scripture and the Magisterum.
Inevitably, the time will come when the voting public will be asked to decide – preferably on the basis of draft specific legislation and not just a blind vote – whether the time is ripe to go beyond current legislation catering for separation of the spouses in case of irretrievable broken marriages between males and females where one or both spouses have sought to restart married life with another member of the opposite sex.
I conclude by urging all parliamentarians and opinion leaders to acquaint themselves with the contents of Familiaris Consortio, the full text of which, and also commentaries thereon, are available in English. There is also a Maltese translation by Mgr Joseph Lupi, published by the Media Centre in 1993.