Bewildering messages

Yes, I really think the messages from everybody in this country are bewilderingly confusing. Last week was a case in point with the Gozo Bishop declaring that the long dreary but insensitive message sent out by himself and the indisposed Archbishop had Vatican clearance. This came after it was revealed that leading theologians and priests disagreed with the letter’s contents to the point that some refused to read it in church.

Is the Church going to further humiliate itself by fighting a losing battle?- Kenneth Zammit Tabona

Can lightning strike twice in the same place? Is the Church going to further humiliate itself by fighting a losing battle as it did over divorce by putting our politicos under the same moral pressures and, if necessary, force a referendum?

Last Thursday, I noticed an item on The Times online about Miss England wanting to be the first IVF-conceived Miss World. The lovely 23-year-old Charlotte Holmes and her younger sister became a reality after their parents, hitherto childless, resorted to IVF. The Times online comments to this news item were scathing: extremes declaring that the Holmes girls should be burned at the stake and those who rubbished the idea that the scientific method of making possible a fundamental need in the human psyche, that of reproducing, should be negated by religious dogma.

I confess that I am bewildered and perplexed. The leading lights in this country are hardly reassuring.

The Prime Minister carries on regardless to what he perceives is the end of his legislature with a party in political shreds and having to ask our new independent MP, at whose insistence the IVF Bill will be carried through Parliament, whether or not he approves of his policies.

Then came the intrepid Franco Debono threatening to “scweam and scweam” unless the Nationalist Party rescind their decision to allow him to contest the next election under its banner.

The Leader of the Opposition has just had to make a statement that Alex Sceberras Trigona’s article last week about the unconstitutionality of Lawrence Gonzi’s and Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando’s position was theoretical. Speculation is rife as to whether the sidelined Jason Micallef will be contesting the forthcoming election or not: if and when it comes.

With both parties in an apparent state of flux, one can hardly be blamed for feeling that apparently irreconcilable science and dogma is yet another grey and uncertain area, the complications of which are ruining our enjoyment of what’s left of a long and super hot summer.

To the majority of us Maltese, despite our professing of our Catholic faith, it seems that, if push comes to shove, we will, without a moment’s hesitation, opt for the pragmatic solution.

Not having a child, in the opinion of a great many, is a far graver tragedy than losing one’s immortal soul. This is a subject that is far more sensitive than divorce. Who knows how many babies conceived through IVF in the last 25 years have been given sumptuous christenings by priests who may or may not have known how that so badly wanted child was conceived.

My own personal opinion is that God gives knowledge, ingenuity and wisdom to mankind to improve itself and that, in consequence, advances in the medical field in particular are, as Dante said of art: Art is God’s grandchild. So is science and so is medicine.

The whole issue clinches on the precise moment when the Catholic Church deems a human being to have been created: hence, the total aversion to contraception. Abortion is generally performed several weeks into pregnancy and, therefore, I can well understand that this would be anathema under any circumstances. It is, however, debatable that a human being, which translates into the Catholic-speak “immortal soul”, is created at the precise moment when the sperm fertilises an egg.

Cardinal Prospero Grech is reported to have declared that Catholicism in Malta has become a social nicety and that many couples today marry in church not because of religious conviction but because churches provide a beautiful background to a time-honoured ritual that has, in the long run, been responsible for the perpetuation of the human race.

I can well understand the good cardinal’s preoccupation with the public’s perception of the Church and its teachings. I was just as perplexed when I was criticised for mentioning the parable of The Good Samaritan in relation to illegal immigration. One commenter declared that Christ had no intention of burdening us with his charitable deeds, which rather reduces the significance of this great parable to the level of Peter Pan and Wendy!

There is no parable that I know of where the good Lord instructs us about the birds and the bees and lays down the law as to when an embryo becomes a soul. These things have been decided by us.

The only instance I am aware of that speaks of something happening ante-natally is in the narrative of The Visitation, wherein we are informed that the unborn St John the Baptist leapt for joy in his mother’s womb as, presumably, he must have sensed the presence of the Lord in the corresponding womb of the visiting Virgin.

Seems like a tall story but there it is. We are presented with the consciousness of two unborn boys who were already aware of each other not long after both of them were miraculously conceived.

The issue here is clear.

On a theological level, the IVF issue can only be solved if and when the Catholic Church may revise its rulings as to when a soul is created. Till then, the harsh rule that precludes childless Catholics from conceiving their own child will apply but will not, in absolute majority, be obeyed.