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The Archbishop appealed to the media to treat issues affecting marriage and the family with sensitivity. His was a message for World Social Communication Day earlier this month.
Well aware of the media’s influence on people’s attitudes and behaviour in practically all aspects of living, the Archbishop rhetorically concluded, “What is the agenda of those who grab any occasion to start discussions in favour of divorce, same-sex marriages, abortion and euthanasia, while attacking and trying to undermine the Church’s teachings?” We could add ‘paedophilia and priests-in-politics’ as well.
In lumping divorce, or even same-sex marriages, with the other two issues, both involving killing of some sorts, was the Archbishop himself being sensitive? Having chastised the media for accepting as inevitable the increasing prevalence of premarital sex, cohabitation and infidelity, did it ever cross his mind that these are in turn strongly linked to the issue of divorce? Correlated, more likely. There will undoubtedly be less cohabitation and infidelity if this country were to follow the rest of the world (save the Philippines) and show sensitivity to human nature as God must have permitted it, in the wake of original sin (or whatever), with inherent weaknesses and imperfections, of which sexual activity, perhaps the most overt, remains relatively marginal to people’s lives, particularly in comparison with crimes perpetrated against fellow beings or, worse, humanity in general by the powerful and rich over the wretched and the miserable.
Instead of accepting this fact of life and, with sensitivity, endeavouring to mitigate it by sensible measures that bring about an overall favourable balance of happiness over pain infliction, the Church here retains its iron hold on people’s minds and, thereby, intensifies the spread of the practices it relentlessly condemns as sinful.
Of course, one is here talking mainly of the Maltese Catholic Church, not the universal one to which we were admitted on baptism and confirmation. As a foreign friend recently told me, “ there is Catholicism and Maltese Catholicism: the difference is stark. Your Church’s unyielding attitude towards divorce is even worse than it was in Ireland a generation ago. And that is saying something!” An Irish friend tells me that even today in certain parts of Ireland cohabiting separated persons are less unkindly looked upon than a remarried divorced couple. Such a lack of sensitivity. Indeed, the hypocrisy of it all, further extending to another facet, peculiar to Malta and nearly always overlooked in debates on whether the country is ripe to introduce divorce, at least on civil rights grounds. An important one, where sensitivity becomes paramount: the recognition of divorce for non-Catholics preferring, for the sake of the Catholic partner, to marry in the Church. Or even willing to convert to Catholicism, albeit in its Maltese version. A contradiction in terms, forsooth, since by definition Catholicism, unlike Protestantism, should have no versions at all.
I vividly recall a serious respectful article entitled ‘Is Ours A Humane Church?’ printed in a Maltese daily some years ago and which provoked a series of responses from ecclesiastical authorities and laymen alike, pro and con. In brief, the author was engaged to a foreign non-Catholic woman who had been the innocent party in a divorce suit several years previously. She had been married in a civil registry somewhere in the EU and had no problem with having her status recognised by the civil authorities here.
Not so with the Church, though. Because the couple intended to settle in Malta and because she had always felt attracted to the Catholic faith wherever she had resided, she decided, in agreement with her fiance, to start receiving tuition from a priest so she could be received into the Church and, hopefully, be allowed to marry therein. But, in the most insensitive of manners, the Curia threatened her with refusal to be admitted to the Church in Malta if she as much as continued with her engagement. In the eyes of the Malta Church she was still married to the husband she had been divorced from, even though the marriage had been a civil one.
The man was as bitterly shocked as she was. They had been given to believe that, once the marriage had not been in the Church or in any other christian denomination church, the Catholic Church would recognise no previous marriage whatsoever and, consequently, the divorce became irrelevant. Some priests even conceded that the Church here was not following the Catholic Church elsewhere and advised marrying in the registry. In the end, after a lot of heartache, the man spared her the choice between him and the newly acquired faith by releasing her of her promise of marriage until such time as circumstances might change and conscience problems disappear.
Which is precisely what appears to be happening now, as they both read what the Archbishop of Seville had to say in justifying his decision to marry Spain’s royal couple in Madrid’s cathedral, “She should not be given a punishment other women do not receive.” Sensitivity in action. Plus common sense.
The Catholic synod emphasised that, because the bride’s previous marriage had been a civil one, it was not valid in the eyes of the Catholic Church and hence she was allowed to be married in a Roman Catholic ceremony.
But, of course, not if it was in Malta! Maltese Catholicism is different from the Roman one.
The couple’s expectations simply do not stand a chance here of being married in the Church. Sadly, not even if they try in another country, Spain included. The ecclesiastical authorities said there would never countenance an altercation with the Maltese version of Catholicism. Or a wrangle with the local Curia. Sensitivity? Here in Malta?
In contrast, I would like to reproduce the prayer I recited together with a large congregation in a Johannesburg Catholic Church a few days before their general elections last month.
A Prayer of Hope for all South Africans - 2004
Dear God,
Our beloved country has gone through a peaceful transformation from a segregated nation into a rainbow nation. We now enjoy freedom from all. Thank you, God, for granting us this miracle.
I now ask of You a second miracle, a second transformation. We enjoy freedom, but we lack prosperity and abundance. (There is no freedom in poverty). Please, God, transform our rainbow nation into a nation of people that respect each other’s values and differences, people with tolerance and compassion for one another – A golden nation. Transform us into a golden nation of people that can work together and create prosperity and abundance for all. To enable this transformation, please help us with this forthcoming general election. Give our country the right leadership to carry our nation into prosperity and abundance. Give us leaders with an honest desire to serve the nation, leaders that will enhance tolerance and compassion amongst our people. With Your chosen leaders, God, we can yet again be transformed - from a rainbow nation into a united golden nation.
God, I pray to You for this second miracle.
God, make this miracle happen to us in 2004.
Amen.
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