Towards an infamous victory

As the campaign over the divorce issue draws to a close, one can hardly say it was a model of democracy in action. There were various reasons for that.

Once again in the island’s history the bishops played a leading role alien to their role and to the civil issue which a divorce referendum was supposed to settle.

Signs are that a No vote will result on Saturday largely due to the way the Church authorities projected the issue and the Yes lobby twisted it in their campaign, during which they refused to be probed by the media, other than on a Broadcasting Authority programme.

The issue is not about divorce, as it is liberally spoken about. It concerns divorce legislation intended to extend a civil right to those who want it but cannot have it because they do not have the means to get it abroad.

Nobody in their right senses wants divorce. Failed marriages are a human tragedy. Relationships are meant to last, whether they arise out of Catholic, mixed or civil marriage, or they take the form of cohabitation.

The bulk of relationships do last. But, sadly, not all. For whatever reason, a number fail, including Catholic marriages. They do so irretrievably.

The issue turns on whether a broken relationship which had been sealed by Catholic marriage should allow couples a second civil chance to form a family by satisfying stringent conditions to get divorced and, subsequently, remarrying if they want to.

Catholics cannot do that and at the same time remain on the right side of the Church. It is not that they are cast out. Most would fervently pray that the God of love and forgiveness understands them with compassion, and enables His representatives to do so as well, rather than speaking of hellfire and brimstone.

In this regard, times have changed. The bishops and most priests and monks do handle with love and care those who, because of their choice, have broken from the Church by establishing a new relationship after they separate.

Yet when it came to consider the proposal for divorce legislation for those who wish to opt to use it, the bishops led what was effectively a crusade, though they strive to convince it is not such. They issued a pastoral letter and guidelines to priests which as much as say that those who vote Yes next Saturday will be committing a mortal sin.

They forcefully interfered in an issue which is about a civil measure – about enacting legislation, not the actual use of it. For that reason, and because the well-financed Yes lobby defocused the issue from one about enabling legislation to one about actually divorcing, a No vote is the likely result.

It will not harm or otherwise affect the Yes activists personally.

They will have succeeded in putting into effect the tyranny of the majority. They will leave individuals who, due to their personal circumstances, yearn to form a family through civil marriage without committing bigamy, condemned to their fate. To cohabit or not even that.

Yes, activists will live happily ever after. They would not have decided anything about themselves. They will have imposed their will and values on others.

The bishops will not live happily ever after. They will have to contemplate the denial of a civil right through their religious intervention, and on the likely growth in anticlericalism.

As things stand, the bishops direly need to analyse the consequences of failure. Before divorce came on the scene, they had already lost half of their flock from obligatory Mass.

A chunk of Catholic marriages already fail. Some failures result in couples putting up a front, wondering where love has gone, but staying together in an empty marriage. Others result in break-ups and some, subsequently, in cohabitation.

Instead of using such failures to try to bring back prodigal children, to make preparations for marriage more effective, to prod the civil authorities to develop the civil aspect of preparations for marriage, the bishops aligned themselves openly with those determined to limit the civil freedom of minorities. They made a mockery of the separation of Church and state, which is safeguarded in our Constitution and which Archbishop Paul Cremona had declared to believe in.

Will all this lead to more people attending Mass, to fewer separations, to less single mothers, to a decrease in hypocrisy where marriages remain apparently all well just for show?

Time will tell. By the end of the week the No lobby are likely to celebrate an infamous victory. Those who need divorce legislation will feel betrayed by the majority. By the Nationalist Party, which militates for a No vote. By the bishops.

They are unlikely to forgive and forget. Their daily life, their inability to have the desired status of a civil marriage, their children born out of wedlock, will not let them forget.

They will see themselves as the tyrannised minority. It will be a sad day for them. And for the Malta Church which, ironically, stands to lose more faithful even if the vote turns out to be a Yes.