Divorce and any legal measures that break down a marriage are “intrinsically bad” since they go against God’s will, Gozo Bishop Mario Grech said during his Sunday Mass homily.

The true and sincere Catholic conscience can never, in no circumstance, compromise on the will of God, he told the congregation at the Xewkija parish church.

Mgr Grech said that when the personal judgment of a Catholic disagreed with the teachings of Christ as delivered by the Church, that Catholic would not be free of “guilt” if he did not bring his judgment in line with the teachings of the Church.

This was because if one consciously breached moral law, he also breached his relationship with God, he said in his homily centred around the theme of conscience.

Last year the Church endorsed a position paper on divorce, drawn up by seven of its most prominent priests, which left the door open for Catholics to vote for divorce so long as they did this on the basis of a “formed and informed conscience”.

The paper set off on the premise that Catholics should strive for a Christian outlook on the family and work hard for their societies to have “stable and lasting marriages” bound by “love and fidelity”.

It acknowledged that “divorce is wrong”, whether permitted by law or not, but did not go so far as to say that voting for divorce legislation would be a sin – something that Mgr Grech stopped short of saying in his Sunday homily when he used the word “guilt”.

Mgr Grech said the conscience was an “intimate sanctuary” where people could be alone with God and discover his law which they must obey. This led people to do good and move away from all that was bad.

“Man is not autonomous in the formation of his conscience but is subject to the will of God,” he said.

He added that any words that misinformed, misguided or blinded the conscience, rather than enlightened and guided its formation, were abusive and could cause irreparable damage on a personal and social level.

When a Catholic formed a judgment of conscience about marriage and all that was connected to it, he had as guidance the Commandments and Christ’s words. These asserted that any legal measures that break down marriage, such as divorce, as well as adultery were intrinsically bad as they were directly opposing God’s will.

Over the past months the conscience of members of Parliament has been the source of much debate. With the upcoming divorce referendum in May, some MPs may be torn between their conscience and the will of the majority when voting on the divorce Bill. Some MPs have declared they will follow the first and some the second, but many have said they would solve the conflict by abstaining.

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