The conscience quandary

Now that the divorce referendum date is approaching, everybody is talking about following his/her conscience. Rightly so, because the supremacy of conscience is vital. But equally important is the vital question: What is conscience?

Conscience is the voice of God in your innermost being, planted there by the Creator to guide you through your life by telling you what is right and what is wrong. Basically, it is the voice of the Holy Spirit, a priceless gift to every human being. God anchored it in His Ten Commandments, which became the universal road map of all time.

But conscience is two-way traffic. It obliges one to go out on a quest for the truth, which will give it the formation and information it needs. Once I realise that the truth is transcendental, that it goes beyond you and me, I will not waste time looking for it where I cannot find it. “I am the way, the truth and the life” is Jesus Christ’s declaration, a statement that binds the truth indissolubly to God.

For God, right and wrong are therefore clear absolutes, a light on the way of life. So, even if your conscience, after being well formed and well informed, tells you that it is right to go for divorce, that, in itself, does not make divorce right. It remains an evil thing because it is intrinsically evil from God’s point of view.

It is we who invented moral relativism, not God. When we did that, we removed God’s stabilising anchor and reduced conscience to the level of a reed blowing dangerously in the wind.

Here we get the conscience quandary. If a person decides to turn his back on God and go his own way, make his own set of rules because he thinks he knows better, God leaves him free to do so. But when he makes this choice, the voice of God within him is stifled. The void is probably filled with the voice of the world or the evil spirit instead of the holy one.

So when this person claims he is following his conscience, he is living a contradiction; he remains in the dark. He is, in reality, following not what he still calls his conscience but his own whims and fantasies, basically doing what he likes, which is not necessarily what God expects him to do. What he calls conscience has been reduced to a will-o’-the-wisp.

Our yes or no vote in favour of or against divorce legislation should start with this examination of our conscience to see whether it is the real thing or an illusion of our own making, which could mislead us and a lot of others on the way. Without God’s anchor, it is very easy to come up with false arguments and make them sound plausible to ourselves and to others. If we keep on repeating these same arguments, we may convince ourselves and others that we are genuine but God is nowhere in the picture.

This is the heart of the matter. Our bishops tried to draw our attention to this in their Lenten pastoral letter when they distinguished between the logic of God and that of the human being. If you leave God out of the picture and just use human reasoning, you can make it sound merciful, kind, altruistic, decent to vote yes for divorce and actually believe this to be true. If you put God back in the picture, you are brought back sharply to the Commandments, Holy Scripture and Church teaching, which say no to divorce.

What to do? People have been analysing the present divide in the Maltese nation as conservative versus liberal or progressive, majority versus minority, backward versus forward, Church versus state. Lately, we have had the addition of European versus I don’t know what, which has absolutely nothing to do with divorce. The truth goes far, far deeper. What we are being asked to do on May 28 is decide for God by saying no or decide to do without Him by saying yes.

The Facebook generation must use its brains. On May 28, their futures will be up for sale. At the end of the day, if there is a wrong decision, they will be the ones who will be left out of pocket, literally. This is not scaremongering. Are they asking themselves the question the older generation is increasingly and more insistently putting, namely who is going to foot the bill for divorce? Who is going to pay for maintenance? What other clauses are behind this hurried Private Member’s Bill? It is only normal that you examine the goods carefully before and not after you pay the price.

This Bill was said to be modelled on the Irish one, presumably because Ireland is Catholic. What was never said came out in an article published in The Times on March 21, written by an Irish gentleman who gave us all the hard facts about the 10 years or more since divorce was introduced in Ireland –statistics on the increase in failed marriages, divorce and cohabitation.

So this Bill is asking us to follow a failed role model. But then, worldwide, where can you find a successful role model where divorce is concerned? Can we conscientiously and foolishly emulate other countries’ failures? Can’t Malta continue being a successful European secular state without throwing all the rules of morality overboard?

Can the pro-divorce lobby stop feeding us myths about responsible divorce? What on earth is responsible divorce? Does it mean that when you first promised “until death us do part” at the altar you were being irresponsible and you have suddenly become responsible after you get your divorce and promise “for the next four years” on your second or your next marriage?

Do those practising Catholics saying yes to divorce know what they are responsible for? They are responsible for those Catholics who will apply for divorce and contract a second relationship, thereby cutting themselves off from the sacraments. Now, that is some responsibility. And, unfortunately, again it is not scaremongering, but a hard fact.

As for those Catholics who are still undecided on this issue at this point in time, they have probably fallen victim to the sophistries and fallacies spread by the pro-divorce lobby.

It is time to do the examination of conscience. Who do you trust more, man or God? This is decision time. Time to stand up and be counted.