If Mgr Anton Gouder and the Curia concentrate their efforts more on actions than words, they will definitely get more followers. In this day and age the Church ‘s role is not only that of preaching to the converted but acting on those who are not impressed by the preaching.
Of course we know that divorce is not allowed by the Catholic Church. Of course we know that what God joins together, man cannot put asunder. But we also know that people who do not follow the teachings of the Catholic Church are not going to hell because they happen to get a divorce and remarry. I for one was brought up with a phobia to this effect, so much so that I always prayed that I will not have the misfortune of falling in with a divorcee for fear of going to hell.
But having spent time abroad – and on one particular occasion having had a Wesleyian pastor and his family as my host family when I was studying in the United States – I realised for the first time that it is impossible for Jesus not to love divorcees, and it is incredulous to imagine that these people are destined to Hell, as they had inculcated into me during my upbringing in Malta.
The rules for the Church remain the same, and unfortunately even the attitude; but in this day and age the attitude must change as the followers have changed. They do not take the preaching of the Church for granted as much as they used to. I understand that the Church is in crisis for lack of staff, but it is practically impossible for the Church to preach good marriages when at the same time it has done nothing about it since the establishment of the Cana Movement in the 1960s.
We have had three workshops in a row about the family lately, organised by different institutions – one by the State (though, incidentally, the person behind it resigned lately), and the other two by the Church. In the three workshops the bottom line was that there is no adequate marriage preparation and no adequate support for married couples and families in marriage. The support one gets, although limited, is when the marriage is over and in this stage it is useless sending the couple for counselling.
If the Church wants to be taken seriously, it must seriously change its strategy. Instead of waiting for the faithful to approach it, it must go to each and every parish and approach the faithful. I ask different parish priests whether they know the troubles that their parishioners are facing in their matrimonial life, and obviously their reply is that they do not have the manpower to do that. We all know that many of the priests are part-time and their priesthood is not a means to an end. So if the Church wants to be taken seriously it must put an end to part-time priesthood and flourish in the parishes.
People want to feel the Church close to their problems and their aches, and not indifferent to their sufferings. The image is that the Curia is protracting at the moment; that its role is to preach and ours to obey; and that is counter-productive, because unless you give the people the impression that you care about their suffering, you will not get the response from the people.
There is no doubt in my mind that the Church is in a big crisis because it is no longer being taken seriously on the issue of divorce. The latest scare, that there is an affiliation between divorce and abortion, did not sell because we all know that the two issues are not related in our culture.
We know that there were over 200 divorces registered in Malta and we know that the law allows for the registration of divorce if you are resident in a foreign country, although you were married in Malta. We know that annulments are given annually both by the State and the Church, and that both divorce and annulment entail a licence to remarry.
Both instances have the same effect on the family: if you got a licence to remarry, be it after an annulment or a divorce, the effects that such a decision will have on your family are the same. There are no statistics which show that children born out of annulled marriages are different from those affected by divorce, or that they go through a different experience when the parents remarry.
We only hear about the possible threats to the family caused by the introduction of divorce, but we never hear anything that the aftermath of an annulment. In the case of divorce, the children can understand that the parents do not love each other anymore but in the case of annulment, how are you going to explain to the children that their parents were never married in the first place?
Do not get me wrong – I am not saying that the Church is not doing its duty in keeping its people away from divorce. But what I am saying is that the Church must not interfere with the affairs of the State and must put into practice its love for the institution of marriage by providing support services for married couples in every parish.
If the Church is indifferent to the problems of the faithful, how can the Church expect the faithful to listen? The faithful want the preaching of the Church to translate itself into actions and it is no surprise that we are witnessing a decrease in the attendance of Sunday mass and an increase in the people leaving the Catholic Church and finding comfort in other religions.
The introduction of divorce to Malta will be a test for the Catholic Church, as to how successful it was in its teachings about the sanctity of the Catholic marriage. It will also mean more work. Because let’s face, people get divorced because they do not take Catholic marriage seriously, and not because they are not good Christians. And so far the Church has to thank the politicians for playing to her tune, and not giving her the hard task of having to work on conviction rather than on fear.
So far the Church has played on the people’s emotions, instilling in them the fear of Hell if they divorce or fall in love again. In fact such people are considered unwelcome in the Church, and I am grateful to those priests who think otherwise, and who allow these people in their Church and show them that Jesus loves them, too.
The trauma that these people and their parents go through is something I do not wish upon any reader; suffice it to say that there are grandparents who have not seen their grandchildren born out of these relationships for fear of going to Hell!
Our Church needs a human face, and very badly.
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