One flew over the Curia’s nest

When divorce gets in and makes it to the statute books (because every­thing does get here eventually), we will have Mgr Arthur Said Pullicino to thank for this.

And no, I am not confusing my Pullicinos. The monsignor’s fatuous outburst at St John’s Co-Cathedral at the start of the forensic year will go down as a defining moment inMaltese history.

I am pretty sure that if the Curia could rewind and take it all back, it would. The ill-timed mistake of one man, who, it now seems, acted alone, may prove to be the most useful mistake the Church has ever made locally.

You see it’s one thing to engage in casuistic argumentation when you are dealing with the masses, with people who don’t really like to think and who have been trained to believe that going against any of the Church’s teachings may ruin their chance at eternal salvation.

Throughout history, the fear-of-God trump card has always been a Church favourite. Saying ‘divorce is a sin, and that whoever wilfully plays any part therein commits a grave sin’, is likely to influence the way some people think and act, people who don’t want to rule out their speedy boarding pass to thePearly Gates.

But it’s quite another thing to think you can get away with the same sophistry and threatening remarks when addressing members of the legal profession who supposedly stand for and epitomise rational, independent, law (not God)-inspired, thinking.

When I read what the monsignor was reported to have said vis-a-vis judges who dared co-operate with divorce law, I instantly knew he had shot not only himself, but the rest of the Curia in the foot, and the consequences of that sermon would be far-reaching.

His sermon didn’t only irritate people like me. It irritated people like Eddie Fenech Adami, Giovanni Bonello and Philip Sciberras, whose opinions carry more weight than mine do. And more significantly, it irritated and upset the Church.

You see, this Archbishop has tried so hard to get the Church back in step with the world. And there’s another thing about the Archbishop. He hasn’t got a short memory and knows we don’t either.

He probably realises that the abuse of children committed, denied and then covered up by members of his Church is not something we’re likely to forget in a hurry.

Back then, I didn’t hear the monsignor calling any of the twisted participants grave sinners. I may have missed it of course, but I doubt it.

And although comparisons are not only odious but also infantile and it would be stupid to expect the Church to okay divorce just because some of its own members seriously jeopardised its credibility, still, moral superiority is not something the Church can ever assume or take for granted again.

It needs to earn our respect back, not keep rendering itself less and less relevant and more and more hostile in today’s world. Everybody knows it is only when Church and state are clearly separated that law, art, science and philosophy can ever stand a chance. We know this but for the longest time in Malta we have behaved like pre-schoolers who can’t do anything without asking the Church’s permission.

As Daphne Caruana Galizia pointed out – why invite religion into the courtroom – a purely secular institution which relies, depends and thrives on its independence from all other entities? Why begin the forensic year with Mass in the first place? How utterly absurd.

Not to mention dangerous. Would you ever imagine a Sharia court to be the ideal forum to decide whether someone should be permitted to wear a burka or not? I think we’d be forgiven for thinking (perhaps erroneously) that a Muslim judge might not really be capable of thinking outside his religiousstrait jacket?

I could make the exact same argument for a Catholic judge and I am sure the people who are appealing against the Stitching judgment may have felt that another judge may have decided the case differently and that the hearing, conducted by one of the more fervently Catholic judges on our benches, was neither fair, nor truly impartial.

You see, although judges promise us impartiality, we never actually stop to think this could or should refer to impartiality from one’s own religion. I am not even sure whether this can and should be helped.

Can and should an adjudicator leave his own personal beliefs at home? I don’t believe it is entirely possible. It would make a veryinteresting debate.

It certainly occupies a lot of my thinking time. Although judges are expected to apply the law, they each have their own private and personal reservoir of beliefs about right and wrong, which surely must make them act and think in a certain way. If you put the same case before five judges, it may well be decided in five different ways.

How should a judge, faced with a law which is diametrically opposed to his religion, react? Could or should he opt out? Would the parties be justified in challenging a judge who didn’t opt out? Should one’s conscience override one’scivic duties?

The controversy fuelled by Said Pullicino may have opened more than a can of worms. It certainly may make some judges rethink many of their first sitting opening speeches, which too often are riddled and punctuated with excessive references to God, in a way which is strangely disturbing.

Judges should be moderate in all things and religion is no exception. There is absolutely nothing wrong with being Catholic, religious and also a judge. I have no quarrel with any religion – each and every religion is as sacrosanct as any articleof any law.

But whenever I am present at any of these speeches I try to imagine how I’d feel listening to a similar speech in a foreign courtroom, where every other word was ‘Allah’ ‘Jehovah’ or Mohammed’.

I don’t think I’d feel entirely safe or comfortable. It would probably make me want to run as far away as I possibly could.

michelaspiteri@gmail.com