Could you clarify the points you raised on a television programme hosted by Joe Grima last week?

Grima began by quoting a saying of Dom Mintoff: “You only recognise a donkey when you hear it bray.” Grima explained that what Mintoff meant was that if you just saw a donkey trotting, you might mistake it for a horse, and it was only when it brayed instead of neighing that you could be sure it was a donkey.

He went on to say that for many years Eddie Fenech Adami could have been mistaken from his manner of proceeding to be a champion of democracy, but his shrill reaction to the referendum result showed his true colours.

I was sorely tempted to tell him that many viewers would not have appreciated the humour of his quotation, since they probably did not know that I am as familiar with donkeys as with Fenech Adami.

I could not believe that Grima had interpreted Mintoff’s aphorism correctly. Mintoff loved and knew horses at least as well as I loved and knew donkeys. Surely he would never have mistaken a donkey for a horse.

On the contrary, a donkey’s braying was such an ugly and absurd sound, so unlike the subtle articulation of human language, that it made the proverbial asinine nature of the animal obvious. So I guessed that was what Mintoff meant.

I prefer to think of the donkey as the animal in the Christmas crib. We put him there because the prophet Isaiah had said donkeys are wiser than humans because they always recognise their master, while many humans failed to recognise the Lord who loved them even when disciplining them.

Grima’s analogy was in my mind more apt than perhaps he himself intended it to be in the context. I was myself rather pleased at the more remotely implied comparison of myself (since Grima stressed heavily my role in the past as adviser to Fenech Adami) to the animal Christ chose to ride upon into Jerusalem.

I decided to say nothing of the above on air as it would not have left me any time to answer Grima’s question about what he described as Fenech Adami’s U-turn on democracy.

Even so, time was very limited. Can you elaborate?

Fenech Adami made a sharp distinction between two types of question. The first type was of the sort whether Malta should join the European Union or not, or possibly whether ministers should also receive a Member of Parliament’s honorarium, which was the real topic of discussion on the programme. On such questions one decided mainly according to one’s calculations of the consequences and the will of the majority should be implemented.

The second type was of the sort when, for instance, fundamental human rights were in question, such as a law that authorised the police to torture suspects of heinous crimes, or the killing of innocent people. In such cases, it was not appropriate to decide according to the will of the majority.

If one believed that an action went against a fundamental human right, then a legislator should vote against it, whatever the majority thought about it.

The case of divorce is more complicated. Clearly, people like Fenech Adami and Adrian Vassallo and many others think that the question of divorce is of the second type.

It seems obvious to them that human beings belong to a zoological species in which when a male and a female form a couple, it is for life (as with a class of pigeons, and unlike cats and other species). Hence, the conclusion is that divorce cannot be right in any social circumstances.

However, it could be granted that divorce was always morally wrong, yet as Pope John Paul II put it, “public authority can sometimes choose not to put a stop to something which were it prohibited would cause more serious harm” (The Gospel of Life, Chapter 3). Accordingly, it may be thought right not to forbid divorce in order to avoid that cohabitation becomes rife.

I personally do not think either of these two points of view are manifestly unreasonable. It seems to me unfair both to accuse Fenech Adami of being unfaithful to his democratic principles as it would be to accuse Laurence Gonzi of being unfaithful to his moral principles were he to decide to vote Yes.

The Fenech Adami point of view was described as the assertion of the superiority of the dictates of conscience over the principles of democracy. What was your answer to the question whether the dictates of conscience should not also require a stronger commitment to social justice and easing the economic problems that were a serious threat to family life?

The word ‘conscience’ is being used very equivocally.

On one hand, ‘conscience’ is understood to mean just the exercise of practical reason in order to decide whether an intended action is good or bad. In this sense, clearly every choice made by a Member of Parliament as to how to vote is always a matter of conscience.

However, it should be remembered that the conscience to be followed should be well formed, and that means that account has to be taken of what authorities whether religious or civil (perhaps the party) have to say on the matter.

On the other hand, ‘conscience’ is also used just to refer to those cases when fidelity to such principles as respect for fundamental human rights is deemed to outweigh other considerations such as the will of the majority.

In this connection it should be kept in mind that a sound formation of conscience cannot be restricted to just consulting authoritative viewpoints.

More importantly it is education of oneself mainly through dialogue to appreciate always more fully all that enriches life and makes existence more meaningful.

Fr Peter Serracino Inglott was talking to Miriam Vincenti.