Can we stop this rubbish about Catholic Malta?
My father is married to Guza, who lives up the road
Either we’re not Catholic at all, or we’ve revised the religion to suit ourselves. I thought Catholics only had sex and babies with a wedding-ring on their finger and a church rite.
The most ridiculous aspect of this farce is that these thousands of babies being born out of wedlock every year are being sent by their mothers to duttrina classes, where they are taught that women like their mothers are mortal sinners, which leaves them to work out the logic – and children do – that they are the products of sin.
So why do the non-believing mothers do it? Because of their mentality: ‘it-tfal tieghi mhumiex inqas minn ta’ haddiehor’.
What a crazy, mixed-up country.
www.timesofmalta.com Thursday, 14th May 2009 – 12:01CET
25% of births were outside wedlock last year
14% ‘risk of poverty’ rate
A quarter of births last year was to unwed mothers, an increase of 9% over the previous year, NSO statistics issued today show.
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Do you think that the fact that more babies are being born out of wedlock is a positive or a negative phenomenon?
Besides doesn’t the Catholic church teach that we are all sinners?
You obviously think duttrina is bad for your health. Do you think that a society where there are no religious values is a better society?
[Daphne – It’s much better for children to have parents who are married to each other than to go to duttrina. Don’t forget that these thousands of children born to parents not married to each other have to be added to the many thousands of other children whose parents were married but have split up. That should give you some idea of the society in which we live. Sunday mass and a lemming-like attendance at duttrina do not make for a society with values. I definitely think that having more babies born to unmarried parents is a negative phenomenon. An accident is an accident. Conceiving a child deliberately in that situation is something else altogether. When you’re speaking of 25% of all births, those are not accidents.]
This reminds me of something that a close friend of mine had to endure.
One fine day, a friend (for brevity call him A) decided to attend confession, and amongst other things, told the priest that his girlfriend was expecting his child.
The priest informed A that he was not entitled to receive the sacraments, as he was living in sin. To cap it all he told A that his child could/would not be baptised, to which A rejoined by asking if the sins of the father should be visited upon the child, and if that was the case than he would baptise the child in the Protestant church (his girlfriend was Protestant), as the last time he checked Protestants did not blame the child for the parent’s actions. Funnily enough, when told the Protestant part, the priest backtracked. Mind you this was around 20 years ago, so it was not so common an occurence.
No Daphne, we can’t. We can’t so that people like me who are separated cannot marry again or else if their ex wife is like my ex wife, that is after she left the house so that she can go out with her friends and do her hobbies and dump our only child at her mother`s so that she can go out, (don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that she cannot go out, but being out 19 hours out of 24 every day I think is too much), won’t leave me alone as soon as she comes aware that I have a relationship.
She says that I am scandalising the child by living with another woman.
[Daphne – Her spiteful motives don’t change the fact that she and many other women are right about this. Men think that their ex wives want to prevent them from living with another woman because they are jealous, and are using the child as an excuse. This is because lots of men don’t understand how profoundly disturbing it is to children and teenagers to see their parents cohabiting with other people. The fact that they often have to put up with it doesn’t mean that it does not affect them negatively. That’s why th Other Woman is so often resented by children – it’s not because their mother is poisoning their minds.]
The only remedy for not being a scandal is that I have to pay more, always for the child and not for her frivolities, I’m told, because she is safe in the knowledge that if she goes to court, the magistrate will tell her that she is right and that I am the cause of scandal and she is not even though she is never at home.
So I have been happily in a relationship for the last three years now, but my child knows nothing. I hide mobiles, messages and phone calls. When her friends or relatives crop up and I am with my partner, we leave, so that no psychological harm is done to us. Me and my partner face hell to continue our relationship, but thanks to our sacrifices that we have done we are still going on.
[Daphne – I know this is going to sound harsh, but I can’t help saying it: there must really be a shortage of men out there if women are entering willingly into this kind of relationship. Some women are either desperate or masochists, or they like the thrill of ducking and hiding until it wears off. It doesn’t sound like your new relationship has much of a future if this is how it’s conducted. Romeo and Juliet were 15 years old, not 35, or whatever age you are.]
And this is because we are in Catholic Malta and have no divorce.
[Daphne – With or without divorce, you would be in the same boat – probably worse, given that divorce rulings are very specific about maintenance and child access.]
Oh how I wish to tell you my story so to see what a hell a man can pass because he is a man.
[Daphne – In my experience, people usually go through hell because of their poor judgement, excluding other factors like acts of God, disease, accidents or horrible governments. I don’t think anyone forced you to marry this woman, nor she you.]
Re your comment :” it’s profoundly disturbing to children and teenagers to see their parents cohabiting with other people. The fact that they often have to put up with it doesn’t mean that it does not affect them negatively”.
This is not always the case. It depends on the way the parents bring them up. In Malta they are not exposed to divorce so they would have a harder time to accept new step parents living together. I have spoken to many teenagers who hate seeing their parents fight and have admitted that they would rather see them living happily with another partner then remain in a hypocritical relationship with their parent.
I would say that Maltese society is one of the most hypocritical societies around. We think nothing of evading taxes, swindling in business, cheating wherever we can cheat without getting caught out, slandering others, pimping, importing women from eastern European countries for a variety of purposes none of which is edifying, abusing the environment, trashing the rights of others without a second thought and much more. But when somebody as much as whispers the word ‘divorce’ or some poor sod decides to worship his god at Ghar id-Dud, then suddenly everybody is more Catholic than the Pope. Pull the other one.
“…importing women from eastern European countries for a variety of purposes none of which is edifying…”
How scary, in my mind I kept reading it as “…none of which is edible”. Took me a while to get my head around.
May I add my top criticism of Maltese behaviours: QUEUING… When you see a line, stand at the back and wait for your f****g turn!
One must also remember that some children are born out of wedlock because their parents had a previous marriage and it failed and than had another try and it succeeded.
That’s why Malta should introduce divorce.
What I see as scandalous is that many separated women receive maintenance from their ex, they have all sorts of welfare, nearly all of them have at least a part-time job working illegaly and most of them live with their new partner. That’s why they register the father as unknown when they have a baby in their new relationship, to continue living off social security. The government has to clamp down on this abuse.
Eric: It is not just ‘this abuse’ that needs clamping down on. There’s plenty going on that doesn’t involve mothers who are not married to their child’s father and plenty more that doesn’t involve women at all.
Looking at the actual stats, it is interesting to note that a good majority (76%) of these births outside marriage have occurred in females younger then 30 years.
[Daphne – Please. Births don’t occur in females. Women have babies. And it is usual for women in the under-30 age group to have more babies than women over 30, whether married or not. Those are the peak childbearing years, the ones in which a woman is actually meant to have babies.]
Though there are no indication whether these were previously married or not I would think that in most cases they weren’t. Another interesting point is the fact that whilst 250 (24%) of the mothers where under 20, only 33 (3%) of males are below 20. Whilst noting that a good 351 are listed as father unknown and hence no age is specified, I would think that improving sex education amongst these girls is imperative.
[Daphne – Every girl knows how to avoid getting pregnant. That’s not the reason.]
In my opinion these statistics miss a number of important questions that could give a better picture whether most of these pregnancies are planned and thus whether financial, housing and other benefits play a major part.
whilst those with father unknown are around 33%
[Daphne – Every girl knows how to avoid getting pregnant. ]
Except those who follow Moviment Cana’s course….
Right, I’m outta here!
[Daphne – Actually, the Cana one is the most foolproof of all: don’t have sex, seeing as we’re talking about unmarried women here.]
Daphne, technically you are right but in scientific terms we do usually refer to pregnancies in females.
[Daphne – Scientists know that only females get pregnant, and that this ability – past, present, future or dysfunctional – is what makes one female in the first place. So a real scientist would just refer to pregnancy, rather than to pregnancy in females. As opposed to what -pregnancy in males?]
Yes, it is true that women under 30 do tend to have more babies than over 30s but I wasn’t comparing the number within the same age group but between within marriage as compared to outside marriage.
Taking the first group <20, within marriage there was 6.5% as opposed to 24% and in the same way:
20-24 – 15% to 28%;
25-29 – 34% to 24%
This is a statistically significant difference and would be interesting to analyse why – in my opinion it has either to do with the lack of sex education or else some sort of love for risk taking. I would be more than happy to hear other views.
[Daphne – It might have something to do with the fact that women over 30 tend to be married and those in their early 20s tend not to be. Also, when you’re very young you tend to think that you are immortal, all-powerful, anything is possible, and things will work out, while the future is very far away. It’s that perspective which changes as the years go by, and not birth control skills.]
You have a point – only females get pregnant – but in all the scientific papers one refers to females as more often than not one is also specifying some special characteristic of these females (in my case “younger than 30”) – at least that is the only reason that I can deduce for such a general usage.
As for your reasons they are true but sex education is not only about birth control but also on being responsible and to be able to have the necessary foresight to judge the results of one’s action.
“Women have babies” doesn’t sound right for schoolgirl pregnancies or the nine year old Brazilian child.
[Daphne – Girls and women have babies, then.]
Catholic Malta is merely a cultural habit like long noisy dinners by the sea in summer, a stroll on the front, family in tow, in the winter, a boisterous, rowdy, drunken and very noisy festa or seven churches followed by a beautiful fresh cerna and crispy white wine. Yes, I am sure there are some genuine practising Catholics out there somewhere, but most have quietly moved on to their own moral code. Whilst the state has so far failed to separate itself from the Catholic Church, society has taken the lead and gone its own way. One hopes that the state will wake up to this fact and willingly accept society as it is and not as what it was in our not-too-distant dark ages. Mind you, don’t hold your breath – this is Catholic Malta, after all!
I thought you were going to say that we are a backward country .
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/news/fullstory_84217.html
“The largest increases were seen in the Netherlands, where out-of-wedlock births rose from 4 to 40 percent. In Spain, out-of-wedlock births increased from 4 percent to 28 percent, in Ireland the numbers went from 5 to 33 percent and in Italy they rose from 4 to 21 percent.
Other findings in the report include:
Countries with a higher percentage of births to unwed mothers than recorded in the United States include Iceland (66 percent), Sweden (55 percent), Norway (54 percent), France (50 percent), Denmark (46 percent) and the U.K. (44 percent).
Countries with lower rates of out-of-wedlock births than the United States include Ireland (33 percent), Germany (30 percent), Canada (30 percent), Spain (28 percent), Italy (21 percent) and Japan (2 percent).
In the United States, out-of-wedlock births are highest among women in their early 20s and lowest among girls younger than 18 and women older than 35. The majority of births to teens are to unmarried teens. For those aged 15 to 17, 93 percent of births are out-of-wedlock, as are 84 percent of births to teens 18 to 19 years. Among women in their 20s, 45 percent of births are to those who are not married. In 2007, among women 20 to 24 years old, 60 percent of births were out-of-wedlock, up from 52 percent in 2002. Almost 33 percent of births to women 25 to 29 years old were out-of-wedlock in 2007, up from 25 percent in 2002.
Hispanic women have the highest out-of-wedlock birth rate (106 births per 1,000). The rate for black women is 72 per 1,000 births; for white women, it’s 32 per 1,000.”
When compared to these countries we are faring better in this regard. In Malta people have been committing grave criminal offences. That does not mean that we were or are less Catholic. Having babies out of wedlock does not exclude the unmarried mothers from the Church; committing a mistake which has grave consequences does not mean that the couple are not Catholic.
You are not talking about abortion here but about births.
[Daphne – Babies born out of wedlock are rarely conceived or born in error in present-day Malta. Catholic teaching on sexuality is very precise and is one of the things that sets it apart from other branches of the Christian faith. It is as strict as Islam in this regard, the difference being that modern laws and social attitudes do not allow censure. People who choose to live together without being married, to have a family without being married, to have sex without being married are making a deliberate choice not to live as Catholics, and no amount of mass-going, sending their children to duttrina or describing themselves as Catholics is going to change this. Catholicism is not a badge or something you were born into, but the deliberate conscious choice of a particular way of living.]
“It (Catholic Faith) is as strict as Islam in this regard”.
Hallina Daph!
In Islamic law a sexual relationship between an unmarried male and an unmarried female is punishable by 100 strikes of lashes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbrkTeVJlnQ
[Daphne – Go back to what I wrote and read it again, John.]
What i find scandalous is that the mothers of these babies are receiving about 600 euros per child (born out of wedlock), paid for out of my taxes. When you come across a family of five children born out of wedlock, it is obvious that this is not an accident but a deliberate scheme to milk the welfare system for all its worth. And even co-habiting couples, where one parent was previously married etc, still find it convenient to list the father as unknown for the same reason. Abolishing the welfare state is nothing short of imperative.
It’s true that Islam is a good religion, but there are many bad interpretations of this religion. These interpretations are doing a disservice to this religion.
We here are not afraid of the normal Muslim but of the radical type. The misguided radical Muslim is not a softy, he is not like the ‘intimidating’ Mr Vincenti.
There are also bad interpretations of the Catholic religion in Malta. Can any Catholic in his right senses approve of the exaggerations in our ‘religiious’ feasts, making a feast of ‘Our Lady of Sorrows’ in Saint Paul’s Bay or parading a statue of the Holy Trinity in Marsa?
Some say that if Christ came back he wouldn’t recognise his church. May I add that not even the Prophet Mohammed (may Allah bless his name) would recognise Islam.
Thankfully there are no more crusaders trying to convert people to Catholicism with the sword, but the problem is that there are Jihadists who are in a Holy war against western culture.These will do their damn best to impose their culture and religion on us. I have seen it being done in other countries.
My view is quite the opposite. I personally think Islam is a bad religion, but as it also happens I think most religions are bad. That said, I would not stop anyone from expressing their religious belief, as long as it’s done in a lawful manner, not obstructing other peoples’ rights. Of course we have to fight against radicalism and extremism. No doubt about it. In fact, it is mainly because of such extremism I find the Christian injunction of universal love of our enemies both destructive and suicidal.
You cited Islamic law as punishing sexual relations outside marriage with 100 lashes. I’d rather be lashed a hundred times for a pleasant time with a woman, than being stoned to death for doing something extreme like, let’s say, picking firewood for my family on the wrong day of the week.
I will support you 100% in your stance against extremism and fundamentalism, but your undying support for the Catholic Church, while not hesitating to attack Islam, is untenable.
Also, to your benefit I can easily say that I think Muhammad’s teachings are a step backwards in comparison to the teachings of Jesus. No doubt about it. Apart from the introduction of hell and the beforementioned compulsory love for our enemies, my only criticism of Jesus (or his alleged teachings) is his support for the barbaric Old Testament. Jesus seemed in general to be a pretty neat guy.
@John Schembri
It is only the “moderate” branch of Islam you love so much that Mohammed would not recognise! From it’s very beginnings Islam was spread by the sword. The concept of holy war is ingrained indelibly within Islamic thinking as only one way amongst several (and no less preferible) to spread the Islamic faith. It is no coincidence that a country where Islam has prevailed is referred to as “dar al Islam” and a country where it has not as “dar al harb” (harb = war).
@ Etienne: I am not an expert in such matters but I worked with moderate Muslims, mainly Egyptians and Moroccans and I have seen Saudis, Indonesians, Pakistanis and Malaysians. All I can say is that the last four tend to try to convert you by forcing you not to drink a bottle of beer.
In Saudi many households have a satellite receiver. You’ll see villas with a substation built near them to provide electricity and a 3 metre dish on the rooftop.
Here’s another interpreter of Islam:
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/022670.php
[Daphne – Here’s a Muslim to stupefy the bigots. They wouldn’t know where to begin: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D94LaaaPmm8 And my 1986 baby is the small figure on the right keeping people away, which is the real reason I posted this link, of course.]
She wouldn’t even have permission to drive a car in her native country let alone do all this.
[Daphne – She’s the queen of Jordon, not Saudi Arabia.]
May we have more of this exceptional woman. Are there any Muslim queens?
[Daphne – Yes, this one. http://www.queenrania.jo/ She even has her own official website, John, isn’t that amazing for a Muslim woman?]
There are only muslim Kings with a harem in tow.
[Daphne – You don’t know, and yet you presume to speak.]
She is basically the wife of the King of Jordan.
[Daphne – Yes, and she remains a queen, however she acquired the title.]
She was born in Kuwait and like many rich Arabs studied in a renowned university.
[Daphne – Oh, I thought Muslim women were kept under lock and key, and whipped regularly? Anyway, she’s Palestinian, not Kuwaiti.]
Daph, I recommend you to read “Daughters of Arabia” and “Princess” by Jean Sasson?
[Daphne – They are about SAUDI ARABIA, JOHN – about a country, not a religion.]
You will understand why we don’t have more Ranias.
Daphne you quote the exception to prove an inexistent normality. Obviously you haven’t read Daughters of Arabia, it is not about Arabian women only , it’s about the way men under the excuse of Islam treat women in various Muslim countries..
“They are about SAUDI ARABIA, JOHN – about a country, not a religion.”. You and I make the difference but for most of the Muslim dominated countries country and religion are inseparable.
[Daphne – My point was that the books are about life for women in Saudi Arabia, and not life for women in any other predominantly Muslim country, or Muslim women in general. I don’t read books like that, for the same reason that I don’t read books that detail experience of child abuse, or drunken parents, or the rest of it. They sensationalise real suffering and turn it into morbid entertainment.]
I don’t read fiction, and these books are about the kind of treatment which these poor women experienced..You cannot talk about books which you haven’t read .I recall of an episode where a girl had an affair with a foreigner and was drowned in the family’s swimming pool. Another was a well educated girl who was locked in a tower by her uncle after the death of her father.
[Daphne – I am not discussing the book. I am saying that you can’t extrapolate from a book about Saudi Arabia to Muslim life in general. Saudi Arabia is a country in which religion is used as justification for what men wish to do in any case. In Malta, the same things are done without the guise of religion. Almost every murder or act of extreme violence committed here involves a man and his wife or girlfriend, generally because she has displeased, dishonoured or disobeyed him. The last one was a few days ago in Bormla. Please explain to me how this is different. And it happens DESPITE the fact that in Malta, unlike Saudi, they end up spending years in jail for doing it.]
Imagine if Muslims were to judge Catholics on the basis of this sort of horrible, systematic abuse.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8058224.stm
The one who spares his rod hates his child, but the one who loves his child is diligent in disciplining him.
– Proverbs 13:24