Catholics and divorce law

The date of July 29, 2011 will go down as “Black Friday” because on that day the President gave his assent to the divorce Bill to form part of the laws of Malta.

On July 25, I wrote a letter appealing to the President to confirm his Catholic convictions by considering his assent to this infamous law, which was handled in such a rush over a short period of time.

Unfortunately, MPs, most of who declare they are “Catholic”, failed miserably and showed great inconsistency in terms of their personal beliefs. We cannot at the same time solemnly declare to be Catholic and yet show how populist we can be by voting in favour of the divorce law.

I would have expected the President to act according to his personal Catholic convictions and according to the Constitution of Malta, which, in article 2 (1), states that the religion of Malta is the Roman Catholic Apostolic Religion.

In his address welcoming Pope Benedict XVI to Malta on April 17, 2010, the President said: “... the majority of our people still believe in monogamous marriage, based on the relationship between a man and a woman, open to the procreation of children, and, consequently, to the formation of a family as the bedrock of our nation”.

The last words by Pope Benedict before his departure to Rome were: “Be worthy sons and daughters of St Paul”.

On July 24, addressing the crowd at Castel Gandolfo, the Pope spoke about the moral responsibility of those in government.

Benedict XVI commented from the Book of Kings in which Solomon, ascending the throne, asks God for an understanding heart to serve His people with justice and to distinguish between good and evil. The Pope explained the meaning of Solomon’s prayer. “We know that ‘heart’ in the Bible indicates not just a part of the body but the core of the individual, the seat of his intentions and judgments; in other words, his conscience.

“An ‘understanding heart’ means, then, a conscience capable of listening, sensitive to the voice of truth and, thus, able to distinguish good from evil. In Solomon’s case, the request is motivated by his responsibility for guiding a nation, Israel, the people whom God chose to reveal His plan of salvation to the world. The king of Israel must, then, seek constant harmony with God and listen to His Word in order to guide the people along the ways of the Lord, the way of justice and peace.”

The Pope continued that each of us has a conscience which makes us, in a certain sense, “king”; in other words, which enables us to exercise the supreme human dignity of acting according to right conscience, doing good and avoiding evil. Moral conscience presupposes a capacity to listen to the voice of truth, humbly to follow its guidance. People called to play a role in government naturally have a further responsibility and, as Solomon teaches, have even greater need of God’s help.

“Yet, the truth is that the real quality of our lives, and of social life in general, depends on the sound conscience of each individual, on the capacity of each person to recognise what is good, distinguish it from evil and patiently seek to put it into effect.

”, May be Pope Benedict had the President and the parliamentarians of Malta in mind because, on the following day, the majority of MPs voted in favour of the divorce law.