Auxiliary Bishop Charles Scicluna has come out strongly against gay adoptions. He tells Kurt Sansone a baby has a right to be brought up by a mother and father.
In an interview with Italian publication Avvenire, you spoke of a grave immoral act if politicians voted for adoptions by same sex couples. How do you define a grave immoral act?
These are not my words. I was quoting from the Vatican document Considerations regarding proposals to give legal recognition to unions between homosexual persons, which was published in 2003 by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. I quoted the part that deals with the responsibility of Catholic politicians: “To vote in favour of a law so harmful to the common good is gravely immoral.” An immoral act is something that goes against ethical principles and the dignity of the human person as recognised and taught by the Church. It is a decision that will objectively harm society and that is why it should be avoided. We are not talking about sin.
Why are you drawing this distinction?
A person is free to make an informed decision and then it is a question of conscience. Bishops do not have X-ray machines that read people’s consciences but when a person goes to confession he tells the priest what the conflict with his conscience has been and asks forgiveness for a sin. Sin is something that happens in the conscience of a person, when the individual deliberately goes against his or her conscience.
On one hand you are telling politicians it is a grave immoral act if they vote in favour of same sex unions and adoptions by gay couples...
On the question of civil unions I would distinguish between a politician who expects same sex marriage to be the order of the day and a politician who wants to ensure that people have civil rights that give them due protection. The latter is conducive to the common good; it does not harm society and is not immoral. My problems with the Bill start when we say same sex unions are to be on all levels equivalent to marriage.
Why is it a problem?
Marriage is the union between a man and a woman that can become one flesh and generate children. This is a link we have always accepted. The generation of offspring demands a heterosexual component to the union. The union between a man and a man or a woman and a woman is a union of friendship. It also has a component of love but it does not have the reproductive capacity and does not generate children. I will not go into the niceties of sex between same sex couples because that is not conjugal sex.
You can have married heterosexual couples who are sterile and so intrinsically unable to have children.
The question of sterility in heterosexual couples does not concern the modus operandi but its outcome which, for some reason, does not ensue. In same sex couples you do not have the modus operandi that can reproduce. This is why in the UK legislation on gay marriage approved last year, the UK Parliament decided that the obligation to consummate a marriage did not apply to same sex couples and rightly so.
Some would tell you that you are reducing marriage to the sexual act when it is much more than that.
I’m sure it is much more than that and the Church is the first institution that will tell you that marriage is more than that. It is a sacrament, an expression of God’s love to humankind. But if you are talking about definition then you have to find the specific element and this is found in the conjugal act. Otherwise, if you talk about a marriage as a union between people, you are simply talking about friendship. This is why Thomas Aquinas said that marriage was a type of friendship. It is a union, but it is a conjugal friendship. In this friendship, this union of hearts, there is also openness to genital acts and to offspring. And this is only between a man and a woman.
What about the balance between grave immoral act and sin?
You need to carry out a balancing act because you have to treat people as adults. I have never gone into this delicate issue in Malta because we have so many ghosts from the Christmases past with the question of immoral grave acts and sin, but it is high time that when I, as a bishop, try to impart a message to the people and politicians I do not simply bring out the red card.
But many have interpreted your message as bringing out the red card.
A grave immoral act becomes a sin if you commit it – but only if you commit it because you want to and not because you are under duress or have to obey your political party. A person who has to toe the party line may lack the freedom to make a proper decision according to one’s conscience. This is why I believe MPs should be given a free vote on the matter.
But why bring up this argument now and not during the election campaign when both major parties were speaking on the need to have civil unions for same sex couples and sexual orientation not being a factor in adoptions?
With gay adoptions they were arguing about the best interest of the child and stopping at that...
My problems start when we say same sex unions are to be on all levels equivalent to marriage
They also argued that sexual orientation should not be a matter that comes into play.
Fair enough, but they were not talking about gay couples adopting. They were talking about civil unions. We are now talking about a Bill that is written in black and white. I need to distinguish between, firstly a legitimate attempt to protect people who may be at a disadvantage – I have no problem with this; secondly, putting gay unions on a par with marriage, which creates problems for me; and thirdly, gay adoptions which creates huge problems. And I say this not only because of my convictions as a Catholic bishop.
On gay adoptions politicians have to consider, even if they adopt secular ethics, that 80 per cent of the public are against it. I am quoting a survey by Misco (a research company) that we commissioned last October (the survey report was shown to the journalist). Even the Humanist Society should be able to tell politicians to listen to what the people have to say, even if they choose to ignore what I am saying.
Would you be making the same argument if the majority of people chose to forget the human rights of migrants and agreed with sending them back to Libya?
This is a very good argument and that is where the limits of the majority argument are so apparent. But I am only taking the argument of the humanists and the secularists on their own ground. Your question is proof that the secularist argument that does not refer to values and objective ethics can have great limitations. There were laws against the Jews and against gays that were intrinsically immoral even if they were legal. Not all that is legal is opportune and not all that is legal is also moral.
I agree with you when you suggest that my secular argument is not strong enough, and that is why we have to refer to values that go beyond what the majority says and are based on the intrinsic dignity of every human being. The majority of adopted children come from Russia and that door may be closed if the government does not guarantee those babies will be adopted by heterosexual couples...
Because of Russia’s anti-gay laws.
It is a policy. I would not call it anti-gay. There are anti-gay policies in Russia but I wouldn’t call a policy that tells you that a baby should be adopted by a man and a woman necessarily anti-gay. I am not anti-gay because I am saying a child should be adopted by a mother and a father. The Maltese are still linked to a value system according to which a baby is born into a family where there is a mother and a father. By introducing article 11 of the [Civil Unions] Bill (which deals with adoption) we are creating a new title of discrimination. One baby will be entrusted to a heterosexual couple and another to a same-sex couple. The focus of any adoption should be the minor...
This is an attempt to satisfy a lobby without thinking about the consequences
I think there is consensus on this.
There is consensus on this. But who is going to decide what sort of parents the child is going to have, now that by law we are going to have three sets of potential parents? Until now we had a mother and a father or a single individual and the baby could say, when growing up, that his parents are John and Mary, or John or Mary. Now we are going to choose, as adults, that when this baby grows up, without having any say in the matter, he will have to write that his parents are John and John or Mary and Mary, with all the consequences that we are unable to explain because we do not have enough research.
We are going to risk impacting these children who have no say. As Ranier Fsadni said in the Times of Malta, the Bill is about radical equality and nothing about the impact on children. This is a fast track, persistent and adamant attempt to satisfy a lobby without thinking about the consequences.
You had supported the Nationalist Party’s call for an impact study on gay adoptions. If you feel gay adoptions are intrinsically wrong it will make no difference to you what the study will say.
I am convinced that if we carry out impact studies we will realise that there is an intrinsic wisdom to the Church’s position.
Such studies abroad have produced different results.
And that is why we should not take the risk with babies.
But your position will not change irrespective of the result the study will produce.
I am not afraid of the result because a Christian who is convinced of the wisdom of the Word of God is never afraid of science. In the end, science will reveal the wisdom of God.
You argue children will have no choice but no child has a choice on the family he is born in.
And gays do not choose to be gay. But I think a baby has a right to be brought up like any other baby by a mother and a father because it is generated by a mother and a father. Adoption is about giving the baby the family it never had. There are those who argue that the system of how we run orphanages – girls who know only nuns and boys who know only priests – is unhealthy, and we have to change things without leaving these kids out in the cold.
But this argument is not being touted now that we want same sex people to bring up our children.
The issue concerning orphanages is not just a question of being brought up only by women or men. It is by far better to be brought up in a loving family.
Absolutely. But if we have so many criticisms on an institution that is not ideal why has it become so ideal now? The Bill is all about changing the institution of family life in Malta.
Parliamentarians have one of two choices to make: retain the status quo, where gay single parents can adopt and allow the legal vacuum to persist, or [support the law]...
Why is it a legal vacuum? There are those who argue the law will strengthen the adoption screening process but this is a smoke screen.
The adoption law speaks of post-adoption screening and follow ups. If people argue that the adoption agency is deceived, what sort of screening is that?
You are saying either that single people should not adopt or being gay should form part of the evaluation process.
Pre-adoption screening at law concerns not only the capacity of a person to be a parent but also his or her household and his or her connections. The minister (for civil liberties, Helena Dalli) cannot simply tell the public that section 11 of the Bill is being introduced in order to ensure that screening of the applicants and their households is done properly.
Are you saying the status quo on gay adoptions is not acceptable either?
I am saying there needs to be more screening. The system has to be better. If the government is saying it is not working well then we have to make screening work well, without changing our concept of family.
But do you make it work well by introducing sexual orientation as one of the criteria for screening because that is the logical conclusion of your argument?
No. The important aspect is always going to be the best interest of the child. That is the paramount criterion, and you will have to assess that on a case by case basis. You cannot legislate for all cases. But section 11 of the Civil Unions Bill introduces a legal concept of couple irrespective of the best interest of the child. I am against adoptions by legal gay couples whereby the baby will have to write ‘my parents are John and John or Jane and Jane’. This is not how babies are brought into the world and so this is a fictitious concept of parenthood.
But they are not fictitious parents. Mary and Mary can be two loving parents as well.
They can, but we are talking about making this the law of the country. It will change the concept of parenthood. To give a very small but practical example, what are we going to do with Mother’s Day and Father’s Day?
Some children don’t have a father because they do not know who their father is. Others have lost their mother without them even knowing her.
And these are real cases that need all our support. And God knows how much the Church does for these people. But the law is about social engineering and not about tweaking a couple of cases.
But it is a fact of life that gay people have adopted children and are raising them as a family unit. What is the solution in these cases?
The solution is better screening to ensure that the situation is not harming the child. But this is also something I would apply to heterosexual couples. Matters have to be evaluated on a case by case basis. This is why the adoption law has enough flexibility as it is. But legislating for same sex couples as parents is a fundamental change to society. It will not be the end of the world, and we will do our best to continue to promote the best interests of the children, but if we can prevent more problems we should. Who is going to restrain bullying?
Isn’t bullying partly a result of this intransigent way we have always dealt with gays?
Am I being intransigent because I am saying “let’s prevent a problem”? If I am seeing it as a problem I should be intransigent about preventing it.
The problems created by bullying are issues society has to shoulder.
It is part of my mission as a bishop to educate our communities and schools for acceptance of every person.
This goes hand in hand with a policy of acceptance concerning migrants, whether they are regular or irregular, it concerns our own people, whether they are gay or straight. It is a challenge for our faith communities and our educational institutions. I have, on a number of occasions, promised to fight homophobia. I say what I mean, and I mean what I say.