From Ms J. Calleja

In the current debate about divorce, the impression is often given that Catholics are against divorce solely because it goes against the tenets of their faith. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is true of course that to them Christ’s explicit condemnation of divorce is of primary importance unless they are cafeteria or supermarket Catholics, as Pope John Paul II had referred to those Catholics who pick and choose from their faith only what suits them and discard the rest.

There are other reasons however why Catholics oppose divorce. They form part of society like everybody else and strongly believe that society as a whole has lost out where divorce has been introduced. Divorce is bad not only for religious reasons, which might be totally irrelevant for those who have no faith at all; it is bad because of the disastrous social repercussions it has on society despite the fact that it would perhaps solve, from a legal point of view at least, the problems of that minority of citizens whose marriages have failed.

In the United Kingdom, to mention just one European country where divorce has been in force for quite a long time and is easy to obtain, the family as a vital, stable cell of society has practically ceased to exist. The results are there for all to see, the most important being the horrendous scourge of juvenile delinquency and subsequent governments are at their wits’ end how to tackle it effectively. Many sociologists and family researchers, who in the main are certainly not Catholic or even Christian, attribute this large number of violent, dysfunctional young people to the fact that the traditional family unit is no more and children see their parents divorce, marry and in many cases divorce again.

In Malta, juvenile delinquency is still a minor problem but will it remain so if divorce were introduced and the traditional Maltese family, with all its shortcomings, ceases to exist? Is it a risk worth taking? What advantages will society as a whole acquire if divorce becomes part of our legislation? Once divorce, like abortion, is introduced, governments lack the courage to revoke it. This is akin to the problem of the large number of guns in the United States. In this country millions of arms are owned by people and it is fairly easy to acquire a firearm. Sometimes, in a minority of cases, owning a firearm can effectively mean the saving of one’s life or that of a relative. This is in fact the main argument used by the proponents of gun ownership. However, the hoarding of arms in millions of homes and the fact that they are within reach of a vast number of people has resulted in a spiralling rise of violent, criminal offences and has led many to ask for the total banning of such arms (arms industry permitting of course).

The argument is also advanced that those who are happily married should not stand in the way of the introduction of divorce since they have no need for it. These words make no sense because it is almost like saying that unless one has been raped or is about to have a severely disabled baby, one should not oppose abortion since one has no need for it. Being “happily married” just does not happen like that and is always the result of great personal sacrifice and tremendous efforts to make the marriage work. Catholics also happen to have children who are married and they would like them to be faithful to their marriage vows, whatever the cost, or, if they are about to marry, to enter marriage with the commitment to make it last forever where the words “till death do us part” mean just that.

In countries where there is divorce legislation such words are simply phoney and illusory, uttered because they sound ever so good on such a special occasion. How can they be otherwise if those who utter them know that after a few months and in some countries even weeks, the newly weds can go their separate ways perhaps never to see each other again and this with the blessing of the State?

Jacqueline Calleja

BALZAN