Forty years on, the monster we all thought was dead and buried has raised its ugly head again – the spectre, that is, of mortal sin in public policy.

The lessons to be derived from the traumas inflicted in the 1960s do not seem to have been fully absorbed – the families that were split asunder, the moral blackmail, the damage caused to faith and to the Catholic religion itself.

No doubt, there are those who would justify all that was done in those days. As there will be those who justify the introduction of the mortal sin issue in the divorce pre-debate – in the sense that for a Catholic politician to vote for the introduction of a divorce legislation in Malta amounts to a mortal sin, and for a Catholic to vote for the introduction of divorce in a referendum would also amount to a mortal sin.

To argue, as some have done, that one can be a Catholic politician and vote for divorce without committing a mortal sin, as some are doing, does not make sense at all. Now that the M word has been uttered, one need not wait for an authoritative interpretation by the Church authorities in Malta or abroad for undoubtedly their response would be univocal and clear.

Once the M word has been uttered, it cannot be vouchsafed or hidden away. It will go on to cause havoc and legislators will be pushed into a corner – for no legislator unless the most irresponsible, in the Maltese milieu, would dare commit a mortal sin in the very public forum of the House of Representatives.

Imagine: if even secular America had its share of legislators being refused Communion, what would happen in Catholic Malta?

And in a hypothetical referendum, in a country where divorce is an issue in which one half of the country has a different idea to that of the other half, imposing a mortal sin on voters would ensure that divorce is kept out of the country for a generation or so.

One could conclude that now the M word has been uttered, there is no need for a parliamentary debate, or indeed for a referendum. There is no conceivable scenario of the debate having a modicum of restraint or of the public issue of so many irregular families being discussed, or the country seeking what is its real and lasting interest.

The victim here is not just the numbers of those in such irregular situations but the state of marriage itself, for ultimately the M word, with all that it implies, all the emotional and fundamental reverberations it causes, is the most damaging to marriage itself.

The second victim is the still young (only 44 years old!) State of Malta as a sovereign State, whose legislators embody its independent and sovereign ruling body, whose deliberations should not be conducted under any shade or threat of mortal sin with consequent ecclesiastical and liturgical repercussions, but inspired solely by what is for the good of the collectivity.

The third victim is faith itself, and the Church as well. But while the Church is free to take those stances it feels impelled to do, who cares about the impact of a third mortal sin scenario on our young, already agnostic, materialistic young people?

Basically, however, the real victim of such a scenario is, we repeat, the very idea of marriage itself. Has the absence of divorce legislation stopped any marriage from breaking up, any of those whose marriages have failed from trying a second or third time? Has the absence of divorce legislation helped any one of the children, who are, in truth, the victims of any marital breakdown? Has not the fact that people with money can go and get a divorce elsewhere not increased the social divide between the haves and the haves-not?

Ultimately, the Maltese legislators are being pushed to declare whether they are the real legislators of the country or whether they take their orders from somewhere else. Whether the oath they took to be loyal to the Republic comes after their personal belief – we will not add private, for belief is not private – or whether they have the courage to take decisions in the best interest of the country and of the marriage regime itself without the moral blackmail of mortal sin. The coming months, or years, will see whether there are any legislators of such moral fibre.

To argue against divorce because you are convinced that its introduction is bad for the country, for the marriages of today and of tomorrow is noble and honourable. But not so to vote because someone, authoritative or not, has uttered the M word.