The heavy-hitters have entered the debate
I was interested to see that the archbishop stopped short of saying whether he objects to the plans for divorce legislation – for let’s face it, that’s what they are – when writing in The Sunday Times today. Instead, he made some very valid points about maturity in sexual relationships and marriage, and all without mentioning God or religion, which made his message all the more effective. People don’t need to refer to religious rules to know how to be decent and to behave responsibly, and lots of us know this, which is why a ‘secular’ message from an archbishop is a whole lot more effective than a religious message from the same source.
The archbishop wrote about the importance of treating each other with respect, rather than sinking into a comfort zone based on the belief that your spouse can’t or won’t leave you no matter what you do. He makes the two seem mutually exclusive, but I beg to differ: the whole point of a good marriage is that it IS a comfort zone in which you are able to relax knowing that no matter how grumpy or bad-tempered you are on off-days, your husband isn’t going to run off with a mail-order bride and your wife isn’t going to leave you for the tennis coach, the golf pro or Tony from work.
My idea of hell is one of those marriages in which one of the spouses is on best behaviour all the time, always jittery and nervous and eager to please, lest the beloved runs off (it is, in fact, the most efficient manner to get a man to flee, in spirit if not in fact, but lots of women don’t know this). The ideal, I suppose, is mutual respect within that comfort zone.
The archbishop’s level approach to this thorny issue contrasts with that of his Gozo sidekick, Bishop Nikol Cauchi, who pronounced himself last week: “Indissolubility is an attribute of marriage; thus it belongs to marriage by natural necessity. Therefore, according to this principle, every marriage, whether civil or ecclesiastical, is indissoluble. Otherwise, it is no marriage at all.”
That’s quite an eyebrow-raising statement. Bishop Cauchi is all for the theocratic approach to marriage: no separation of church and state where the marital bond is concerned. The Heavenly Welder joins together even those who sign a marriage contract in front of a civil servant in some dull registry office in Valletta. Looks like we’re in for a rough ride with this one.
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I wouldn’t really call Bishop Nikol Cauchi a sidekick. His pen flows freer, now that he’s Emeritus Bishop.
So does the attention span of his readers, if you get my drift.
In today’s Independent on Sunday, a contributor writes: “Natural law is the supreme law of the land that must be kept in mind by any type of government.” Now, I would like it to be explained to me what divorce has to do with natural law. If anything, it seems clear to me that natural law is the law of Nature and Nature has neither ordained monogamy nor fidelity and still less marriage until death do us part. The same contributor argues that :”Both (sic) the legislative, executive and judicial branches of the country must put into effect rights and duties, which they themselves did not make and are not entitled to change or abrogate. Not even a parliamentary absolute majority, or a popular referendum, can go against the fundamental tenets of natural law. They cannot make something look truthful when in itself it is fundamentally not. All legislation that goes counter to natural law is not truthful. This in turn renders that legislation null and void and does not oblige the conscience of the ordinary citizens of any State.” Perfect scholasticism. I take this writer to mean that the powers of the State do not even have the competence to legislate and execute any law about marriage or divorce because, according to the writer, these things are encompassed within natural law. This writer seems to believe that, since natural law is applicable universally, all governments of the world that have legislated about divorce have acted ultra vires. By assuming that divorce falls under the scope of natural law, which is considered by the upholders of the natural law theory as superior to positive (man-made) law, this latter-day Thomas Aquinas is removing from parliament the competence to legislate in this field. Heaven help us!
The term “natural law” is a cowardly excuse for “my god says so”. I doubt our society would be a very prosperous one if all just succumbed to real natural law.
The point by Fr cremona is valid. Maybe before introducing divorce, the state should promote healthy marriages based on todays realities. When most of the media points against marriage, teenagers have nowhere to look (since they dont see their parent’s marriage, even when still together, as healthy). The church should also do something similr. Most courses from Cana movement are outdated and superficial.
The need for promotion of healthy marraige does not exclude the need for divorce where marraige has broken down irretrievably.
In my case I have been legally separated for 14 years and have two kids from a second relationship out of marraige. Which Bishop can still hope that my marraige can be re-fixed or that I would be serving God by abonding my young kids to go back with my ex-wife?
I can imagine how the Church will get out of this conundrm a few decades down the road when a sizeable portion of Catholics would be divorced. Marraige needs 4 crucial elelemts to be valid. The male, the female , the minister representing God and love. When one of these elements is missing marraige is null. Love never dies. If it dies it was never there in the first place so the marraige can be annulled with much less burden of proof then is the case today. Anything, but do not call it divorce.
@ Jim : ” Most courses from Cana movement are outdated and superficial”. Can you please substantiate your statement please? Do you have a recent experience? In your opinion what can be done to improve them?
@jim: even if, merely for the sake of the argument, the State were to find some magical way of “promoting healthy marriages” (no one seems to know how), until such time as this is achieved, what is to happen to those whose “unhealthy” marriages have failed? I think the advocates of the prepare-suitably-for-marriage-and-live-happily-ever-after fantasy should come down to earth and accept that there is no way for this to happen and that divorce is a right which has been denied to the Maltese for far too long because of vested interests of the Church and its supporters. There is no way to guarantee that a marriage will last for ever. Romeo and Juliet died too soon for us to know what would have happened had they lived. When the couple know that it’s over, then they should have the right to call it a day and look for new pastures. This is what happens in all the world except in “Malta fior del mondo”… We can no longer live in a bubble floating in a sea of obliviousness ignoring the world around us. Enough is enough. There is no need to discuss anything, there are no more arguments to come up with, there is nothing to study, nothing left to consider. It’s all been done before, long ago, all over the planet we refuse to live on.
To me marriage without divorce is akin to setting out at sea without life jackets. No sailor plans to drown, but if the s?*!t hits the fan there are the life jackets. I guess it’s the same with marriag … no couple plans to divorce when they are making plans to get married, however if things don’t work out why not offer an alternative?
@John Schembri : just talk to people following these courses. The courses might be intersting but still superficial. As related to what can be done, I have no idea. If i had, i would pass the information. Maybe some sessions can be held a year after marriage, when things starts to get tough.
I’m not advocating that marriage should last forever for some couples. Some people are hell to live with (thats why the church has annulment – altough some get it and some not).
then there is the issue of children, which no one takes into account. Do they have the right for a happy childhood?
@Ronnie – your argument is quite superficial. A life jacket, you take before going, not after. Actually, are couples getting prepared for marriage? I think not. They spend years on their new home but nothing is done on a personal level.
@freethinker – i dont live in fantasy. i invest in my relationship. If couples see marriage as an investment, they will threat each other different.
What a nonsensical debate.
If someone is in dire need of divorce they will hardly understand the empty rhetoric of those who say that marriage should be insoluble. And their kids aren’t much happy.
If someone wants to stay married (or even more ironic if they aren’t even married)and would never contemplate divorce for whatever the reasons, will never understand the others.
No-one can win this debate.
We just have to make use of axioms. An example of which is that if someone wants to leave his/her spouse, no-one can stop him/her especially if they leave this gilded island cage. And another is that if a couple wish to stay married together, no divorce legislation will make them split.
Last axiom: SHOULD BE WRITTEN IN BOLD
If a marriage is threatened simply by the availability of divorce then that marriage is worth SH*T.
And since I believe what I just wrote, that’s my final word :)
@ Ronnie
In countries other than Malta, unfortunately some people do
get married thinking if it doesn’t work we can always get
a divorce. So it is important to help young couples before
they get married and explain to them that at times, keeping
a marriage going can be hard work. However, if a marriage does break down, then divorce should be available. There
are two main reasons, first of all children in an
unhappy marriage can be damaged for life, and secondly,
why shouldn’t the innocent party in the break up have
another chance of happiness.
@Alfred Mifsud: if I understand your last sentence correctly, you state that if there was no love right from the start, then the marriage should be declared null. Annulment (more precisely a declaration of annulment) is a legal concept and , since love is not a requisite for the validity of marriage, either a civil or a canonical one, no judgment of annulment may be made on these grounds. Love is only a desideratum but not a legal requisite. Of course, you must know that annulment means the marriage was invalid ab initio while divorce is the dissolution of a valid marriage.
In my view, the Church does not need to get out of any conundrum. It just needs to stop pressuring the State from enacting divorce. Even more forcefully, the State needs to stop acting as if Malta is a theocracy subservient to the Church. I have always believed that any politician who is afraid that, should he contribute to enacting divorce, he will have to account for it to his Maker, then that politician should leave politics. There can never be any argument against divorce, other than a religious one, that is not also applicable to separation and no one has suggested we abolish separation and force people to live together when they do not want to. The Maltese State is just postponing the inevitable and leaving its citizens in misery in the process. We are the last European Union nation still fighting for civil rights. But we shall overcome. Probably not in my lifetime but we will. I already hear the call: “Free at last, free at last, thank God almighty we’re free at last!”