If you are reading this article today … that means the world was not destroyed yesterday, as predicted by 89-year-old Harold Camping, an evangelical Christian.
Well, he had already got it wrong in 1994, so maybe he has sort of got used to getting it wrong. According to some minority sections of the Christian faith − via this octogenarian’s rather embarrassingly unreliable maths − ‘The Rapture’ should have taken place at around 6pm yesterday; Saturday, 21 May.
The Rapture, another name for Judgement Day, is supposedly the time when God’s chosen people will ascend to heaven and the rest of us are left behind to face apocalyptic scenes of earthquakes and fire.
The ‘trial’ for non-believers could last six months, but by 21 October they will all be dead, says the prophecy.
Nearer home, and nearer us, The Times yesterday reminded us it was 50 years ago yesterday when Dom Mintoff tried to hold a public meeting at It-Tokk in Gozo and was beaten back by the bells of the church on the square and the opposition of Gozitan members of Tal-Muzew.
They may not be so physical or blatant now, but the end result is the same. Or is it only I who seems to think that, whatever the Xarabank survey (if that is a survey to be commented upon, with 40 per cent Don’t knows!), Xarabank itself showed on Friday that the basic reason for so much intransigence, condemnation and even ‘spiritual’ threats is that either the No camp think the referendum is going the Yes way; or else the No camp is getting as paranoid as it says the Yes camp is?
Or perhaps there’s a different scenario the disheartened supporters of the Yes vote might perhaps take into consideration. What we used to think was the ‘Arab Spring’ has now come to Europe with the 25,000 ‘indignados’ (the angry ones) massed in Puerta del Sol in Madrid in defiance of police orders. This indignados wave has now spread to many Italian cities, mainly fuelled by Spanish students angry at mass unemployment and lack of opportunities in their country.
Going by the comment blogs here in Malta, the issue making so many young people indignados is the way they see the country going backwards into the Middle Ages and the times of the Inquisition, away from bringing about progress and improvement in the quality of life, angry at the way in which the authorities of the country have piled on pressure and twisted what we normally think are objective channels of information into pressure points for a No vote.
Will there be an indignados spontaneous protest after the announcement of a No vote, or will those who voted Yes slink out of the country never to return?
By throwing their weight solidly behind the No vote, the country’s authorities have not left themselves margin for negotiation. They could have tried to negotiate with JPO and Varist for a saner divorce bill that removes most of the problems in the bill. But on the one hand the authorities were (are) completely hampered by doctrinal intransigence and on the other hand JPO and Varist (aided and abetted by Joe Muscat) pushed and pushed with their new-found majority in the House.
A 40 per cent don’t know quotient is very, very high. It shows a public opinion that has become thoroughly confused. The more the arguments for or against are made, the more people are finding themselves in real difficulty.
Last week, I said a high proportion will vote according to what they perceive their party is telling them in this supposedly ‘private conscience’ referendum.
To those who are still uncertain I propose some possible lines of interpretation.
Look at the people around you; talk to those people you respect most and try and find out what they will be voting for.
Alternatively, find out how the people you find most obnoxious are going to vote and do the opposite.
I can tell of long-time philanderers who will be voting No, and I can also tell of a family, which is so messed up as a family and does not know what love is, who of course will be voting No. I also know of people who are staunchly Nationalist yet will be voting Yes, despite JPO. I also know of people with a girlfriend on the side who are very much in favour of a Yes vote.
As a country we were already messed up, but we have been even more immersed in confusion with the appearance of the Catholics for divorce splinter group. I don’t agree with Bishop Grech’s words of condemnation at the Confirmation ceremony in St George’s church in Victoria (if he was rightly reported and if he was referring to them), but all this group’s public statements over the past days (and also their stance on Xarabank, although it was not right they were interrupted so much by the No person) just do not make sense.
According to press reports too, my old mentor at Il-Ħajja, Dun Anġ Seychell, created a commotion at the Żejtun church when he said that people who vote Yes should not go to church.
Now Dun Anġ is an institution at Żejtun. For many years he has been in line with the town’s Labour sentiments. He is a humble and charitable priest who has turned his own private home into a home for people with disability.
Yet last Sunday, it would seem he and his congregation parted ways. I have no doubt that many people who go to church every Sunday, and even daily, will still vote Yes and, after next Sunday, will still go to church. Everything will quieten down eventually.
But Bishop Grech, Dun Anġ and the rest have come up with all sorts of sociological arguments but little theological substance.
What does the Bible say about divorce? I refer to perhaps the best text in this area – Encyclopaedia of Biblical Theology (The Complete Sacramentum Mundi) edited by Johannes B Bauer pgs 551 – 555. In short, in the Old Testament divorce is mentioned and accepted and was granted for something as mundane as the husband finding something repugnant in his wife or even if he ‘dislikes’ her.
However, it is equally clear that Christ emphasises the original meaning of marriage and puts an end to the possibility of divorce conceded to the Jews because of their hardness of heart. Even 1 Corinthians 7:15, the Church’s normal interpretation of which is normally held to be the basis of the Pauline privilege, may be overstepping the limits of the Pauline text.
However, has anyone ever inquired into what happened to the equally strong condemnation by the entire Bible of usury (ie lending at interest)? Try googling ‘Usury in the Bible’ and see how time and tradition mellowed that condemnation.
The book by Giorgio Forattini on this page takes us back to the Italian referendum of 1974 (to which tomorrow’s conference by the Adista director may refer to). Those were the days (and the Catholics for Divorce at least got this right) when people such as Carlo Carretto argued against the Italian Church’s massive and unsuccessful push to repeal the Loris Fortuna – Baslini divorce law. I can give more references nearer to us. La Stampa 13 Gennaio 2006: «Divorziare non è peccato tanto è vero che negli Stati Uniti i coniugi cattolici, prima di ricorrere al tribunale civile per il divorzio, chiedono un’autorizzazione alla Chiesa. E i vescovi non autorizzerebbero mai una cosa di per sé illecita». Ad aprire la Curia al dialogo con i gesuiti spagnoli che si appellano al Vaticano per ottenere la comunione ai divorziati risposati è il cardinale Mario Francesco Pompedda, prefetto emerito del Supremo Tribunale della Segnatura apostolica (la Cassazione d’Oltretevere), voce autorevole del Sacro Collegio e giurista di fiducia della Santa Sede. See also Il Foglio of 13 January 2006: I gesuiti aprono clamorosamente ai divorziati. E’ vero, come sostengono, che la persona divorziata, per il solo fatto di essere tale, non si trova in una situazione di irregolarità?
«Il divorzio in sé non è un peccato, anzi in certi casi può quasi essere consigliabile per risolvere alcuni problemi di natura patrimoniale e civilistica tra le parti. Aspetti che la semplice separazione non risolve. Il divorzio pieno non è dato dalla Chiesa ma nel Codice di diritto canonico ci sono pure delle norme che prevedono processi di separazione dei coniugi. Non è la stessa cosa del divorzio in senso stretto, però è evidentemente è un segno importante. E’ la dimostrazione che anche la Chiesa riconosce che in alcuni casi si può pronunziare separazione fra le parti».
I gesuiti spagnoli denunciano che nella Chiesa i divorziati non sono trattati con la misericordia del Vangelo ma piuttosto con scarsa considerazione, con mancanza di comprensione e con un eccesso di durezza.
However, see also the Catechism of the Catholic Church on this subject that condemns divorce and speaks (but in much milder terms, Bishop Grech) about Catholics who divorce and remarry and states they cannot go to Communion, and most speeches by this and the preceding popes.
But see also Time Magazine http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,944677,00.html#ixzz1Mtfc4eM2
And from the Corriere della Sera by Elvira Serra: Parroci controcorrente. Ma non è soltanto questo. Per chi è stato battezzato, cresciuto in una famiglia cattolica, sposato in Chiesa e magari ha avuto dei figli educati secondo i principi cristiani, è difficile sentirsi lasciati soli quando c’è più bisogno di conforto. Don Luigi Garbini, giovane e anticonvenzionale prete di San Marco a Milano, protesta: “Io faccio fare la comunione a tutti. A parte il fatto che non ricordo a memoria i loro peccati quando vengono a prendere l’ostia: ma cosa dovrei fare, fermarmi e dire ‘tu sì’ e ‘tu no?’».
E sgrana gli occhi dietro la montatura di Antonio Gramsci quando sbotta: «Gesù è venuto per i malati e non per i sani. È difficile capire come mai una unione non è andata in porto, chi è attore e chi subisce. A volte le cose sono semplici, altre dolorose. Dunque è un paradosso negare il sacramento a chi ne avrebbe più bisogno: la grazia sacramentale non si può ottenere in nessun altro modo. Purtroppo la disciplina ecclesiastica non ha ancora trovato una formula per dirimere la questione. L’ultimo (libro) del cardinale Martini (con Don Verze) mi sembra l’ennesimo intervento che dimostra la sua grandissima intelligenza e la sordità dell’episcopato italiano».