A front-page story in The Sunday Times yesterday, in the wake of the debate that is running about divorce, covered a survey on our local attitudes to the Church and religion.
People are keeping up the appearance of conforming, because, like kids in the playground, what we fear most is being different, but then we go about our own lives much as any secular person does in the streets of Paris or London, Rome or New York, Tokyo or Beijing.
To say therefore that we in Malta have our own unique brand of Catholicism is an amusing understatement, following these survey results of our own local attitudes to Church and religion. The area where we apparently ignore what the Church says most is, perhaps not surprisingly, that of sex, where, wait for it, only a third follow the Church’s actual teaching.
On the much softer and easier options like family life, 88 per cent said they follow the Church’s teaching, while an amazing 90 per cent said they follow Christ’s teachings to love our neighbour. How on earth we Maltese manage in our heads to separate sex from family life is an interesting conundrum that can be debated elsewhere, but I guess it explains the number of people who lead double and triple lives.
So the man who is providing for his wife and kids and is always there at Sunday Mass would think he is following the Church’s teaching, while at the same time having a affair with his secretary (or even his far-more-hidden homosexual partner since many gay Maltese men sadly feel the pressure to hide their homosexuality and get married) or whatever would come under the sex category where he is knowingly ignoring the Church’s teaching.
Similarly, the married woman who is madly texting another married man while her husband works ever longer hours, feels fine about it as long as she is still, for all appearances at least, part of the Church’s fold every, or almost every, Sunday Mass.
The last one is the subject of another article but it is easy to see why the Church’s teachings are being generally ignored on sex. They are simply not relevant, not only in modern times, but always. The Bible is an amazing story, a very human story where sex, lies and violence figure prominently.
Human behaviour is what it is and it hasn’t changed much. While we are generally at peace here in Malta, switching on the news has become the best way to realise how lucky we are, be it because of our mildish weather, or the fact that we have no real race differences between us, and that although we have all the possible crimes under the sun, there are certain limits as to what criminals will do in a closely-knit culture where someone’s brother, father or uncle might come after you with a vengeance.
The main spokespersons of the Church are celibate, have probably never experienced sex, and therefore come up with ideas, be it on marriage (main aim of which is to make babies), or condoms or the pill, or IVF which just display an utter though understandable ignorance of sex and the human condition.
How can a parish priest begin to fathom the women who tells him her husband just rapes her every night and what possible advice can he give her? After all, there is no divorce in Malta so although this woman can leave her violent husband, she would never ever be able to marry again.
Lou Bondi’s programme last Tuesday just displayed what we all know: those who are part of the all-believing Catholic group who impose the rules of a Catholic marriage on all the others who don’t.
There is obviously a very cynical reason for all this. If divorce were brought in for civil marriages but somehow excluded for Church ones there would be a rash of even more civil marriages than there is already. The Church already has a very depleted flock, though the crowds running after the Archbishop with a winner of a smile and demeanour give a very different impression.
Still the Church here should be grateful that we all really are believers of a sort. Someone said the only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about, and the whole huge debate around divorce, the arrival of a new Archbishop, the possible arrival of the Pope is keeping the Church in the spotlight.
It shouldn’t get too touchy and offended when inconsistencies are pointed out. It should learn from them to use the media better, which I am sure it will.
But it will also have to learn to accept the secular state, and not use its influence directly or surreptitiously to influence politics any more than it already does.
It has an important role here and all the right in the world to comment, but no right to play any form of politics again. It has been pathetic to witness how few politicians have dared express their true feelings about divorce because of justified fears that it will influence voting patterns.
The Church apologised once for its interference in political life. Let’s hope it does not ever need to do so again.
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