Auxiliary Bishop Charles Scicluna with then Pope Benedict.Auxiliary Bishop Charles Scicluna with then Pope Benedict.

If Catholic lawmakers vote in favour of legislation recognising gay unions they will be committing a “gravely immoral” act, according to Auxiliary Bishop Charles Scicluna.

Quoting from a 2003 Vatican document, Mgr Scicluna referred to a section that specifically says Catholic politicians have “a moral duty to express their opposition clearly... and to vote against” civil union laws.

Mgr Scicluna’s comments emerged in Italian newspaper Avvenire, which yesterday sought his reaction to last week’s The Sunday Times of Malta article.

This newspaper had reported the Pope was “shocked” by Malta’s Civil Unions Bill, which will allow gay couples to adopt. The interview prompted reaction from around the world.

Sharing a private conversation he had with the Pope on December 12, Mgr Scicluna had said the pontiff encouraged him to speak out about his concerns.

Asked whether the Vatican backed what Mgr Scicluna said, the Holy See’s press office director, Fr Federico Lombardi, yesterday said he had no comments to make about it.

“He has the authority and the well-known competence needed to speak about this,” Fr Lombardi told The Sunday Times of Malta.

Contacted to amplify on the remarks featured in Avvenire, Mgr Scicluna stressed that as a bishop he treated MPs with respect, but urged them to listen to their conscience and to what the people were saying, especially on gay adoptions – which the majority were against, he said.

“I’m not there to tell them how they should vote; I’m not the judge of an individual’s conscience.

I’m not there to tell MPs how they should vote but if they ask me... I cannot simply hide

“But if they ask me what the position of the Church is I cannot simply hide and not quote a document on this issue,” he said.

The subject is under the spotlight because when Parliament reconvenes next week, MPs will continue discussing the Bill, which plans to give same-sex couples the rights and duties as married couples, including adoption.

The Bill has passed the second reading and is now at committee stage where the law’s individual clauses will be debated.

Giving the background to how Malta was in the process of legislating in favour of gay couples, Mgr Scicluna told Avvenire that “in a frantic rush to grab votes” ahead of the 2013 general election, all political parties had promised to facilitate the gay lobby’s demands.

Reacting to Mgr Scicluna’s comments, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said the Church was entitled to voice views on matters it believed were important to its teachings.

“Yet, as a modern democracy, State and Church matters are separate. Labour was elected with a very strong mandate to implement its electoral manifesto, which clearly includes civil unions, and that is what it will keep doing for the rest of the legislature – 2014 will be the year of equality in Malta.”

Dr Muscat ruled out giving government MPs a free vote on the issue as the position on civil unions had been clearly spelt out in Labour’s electoral manifesto.

The Nationalist Party too is in favour of civil unions but it has reservations about gay adoptions.

“The PN has taken a common position on how it will proceed in the coming stages of the Bill, including what amendments it will be putting forward at committee stage,” a PN spokesman said, adding that these amendments had already been announced in Parliament before recess.

Talk on civil unions risks mirroring the divisive debate sparked by the divorce referendum in 2010 that led to a backlash against the Church. Then, the Church’s pro-vicar, Anton Gouder, had said whoever voted in favour would be committing a sin as this goes against Christ’s teachings.

But Mgr Scicluna told The Sunday Times of Malta he was keen to avoid a similar situation on this topic.

“I don’t want to go down the path of divorce as this caused a lot of hurt and I don’t want to centre the discussion on personal matters such as sin... I don’t have machines that X-ray consciences – you can only judge a person by listening to what they feel in their conscience,” he said.

He emphasised this had nothing to do with being anti-gay; on the contrary, it was the Church’s duty to fight any sort of homophobia.

His main concern was gay adoptions and he said it was crucial to defend children’s rights.

Mgr Scicluna said the Vatican’s document – Considerations Regarding Proposals to Give Legal Recognition to Unions Between Homosexual Persons – was very clear on gay adoptions.

The document, presented to Pope John Paul II by then prefect Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Emeritus Benedict) in 2003 has not since been updated.

It says the absence of “sexual complementarity” in these unions created “obstacles in the normal development of children” placed in the care of a gay couple.

It adds: “Allowing children to be adopted by people living in such unions would actually mean doing violence to these children, in the sense that their condition of dependency would be used to place them in an environment that is not conducive to their full human development. This is gravely immoral.”

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