Upholding Church’s teachings on divorce (6)

A new lobby group, Kattoliċi: Iva Għax Dritt, is campaigning in favour of divorce as a civil right. It says that it is the duty of Catholics to see that the state should not impose a particular morality on all of society. It also decreed that values of love and mutual respect teach Catholics to promote the rights of others even if they disagreed with them.

These self-styled Catholics are not in communion with the Pope, who in his welcoming address in Malta said: “Your nation should continue to stand up for the indissolubility of marriage as a natural institution as well as a sacramental one”. Benedict XVI was referring to marriage as an institution common to all mankind, thus incorporating both civil and sacramental unions.

The kind of reasoning adopted by the group can have ramifications on other issues as well. It can be used as a basis for campaigning in favour of so-called rights for certain groups of people, such as abortion for raped women and euthanasia for terminally sick people.

True Catholics are called not to embrace such “rights of others” if they know that granting them goes against the teachings of Jesus Christ and inflicts on society more harm than good.

There is ample evidence in other countries that divorce legislation increases the destabilisation of society. Thus a true Catholic can never campaign in favour.