As the controversy over the pastoral letter on in-vitro fertilisation unfolded, Cardinal Prospero Grech raised a point that could be crucial in addressing the situation as it now stands.

Cardinal Grech noted that the main challenge the Church faced today was the lack of a scale of values against which people could measure what was right and wrong, true and false.

It, of course, falls upon the Church itself, and, particularly, its leaders, to promote the scale of values Cardinal Grech speaks about and hammer home the true significance of its teachings. Pastoral letters are a means of doing so but, to be truly effective, the Church must speak in one voice and be seen to have the good of society always at heart. Though, admittedly, no easy task, this is certainly not beyond the Church and its leaders who must remain in conformity with the teachings of the Magisterium.

The Maltese cardinal acknowledged this when he said: “Beliefs don’t change with votes... and although the Church could have been more flexible when handling the divorce issue, there is a limit to this flexibility”.

Unfortunately, the Church in Malta does not seem to have learned much from the bitter experience of the divorce debate when the apparent internal dissent/disagreement weakened its campaign.

There is again dissent, disagreement, lack of coordination, call it what you will, about the stand that the Church should take on the government’s plans to introduce legislation controlling IVF.

Archbishop Paul Cremona – who has been indisposed for some time now (may he have a speedy recovery) – and Gozo Bishop Mario Grech insisted that the pastoral letter was issued “by both bishops and, for this reason, it expressed their mutual position on the matter”.

Unfortunately, such unity does not seem to be that widespread within the Church. In fact, a number of priests refused to read the pastoral letter during Sunday Mass. It does not appear to have been a coordinated initiative but it still proves that not all is well within the Maltese Church even on such sensitive issues as artificial procreation.

Fr René Camilleri, a leading theologian and the Archbishop’s delegate on catechesis, felt that the language used in the pastoral letter was offensive and lacked sensitivity.

Fr Emmanuel Agius, dean of the Faculty of Theology, a member of the National Bioethics Consultative Committee and who sits on the European Group of Ethics in Science and New Technologies (European Commission), replied when asked by The Times earlier this week that he had not yet had time to see the details of the pastoral letter because he was working on an important European document. Given his background and the fact that Rev. Prof. Agius is a consultant to the Archbishop on artificial procreation, such a reply is very telling. His opinion on the pastoral letter would certainly have been valid also in view of what he wrote in a Talking Point on The Times on April 7: “Way back in 1987, the Catholic Church, in its Instruction Donum Vitae (The Gift of Life), distinguished morality from public policy. Though the Catholic Church finds moral objection to IVF treatment, the document on bioethics maintains that a legislation permitting reproductive technologies can be tolerated for the sake of public order and in order to avoid a greater evil, namely the unregulated practice of assisted procreation.”

The tone is far removed from that of the latest pastoral letter, yet, it still remains within the teachings of the Magisterium.