Images from the Pet Shop Boys’ hit video It’s a sin have come rolling back in many people’s minds in recent days following Judicial Vicar Arthur Said Pullicino’s absurd declaration that Catholic judges presiding over divorce cases would be committing a sin. And who instantly and masterfully quashed his argument? None other than staunch Catholic former President of the Republic, Eddie Fenech Adami.

If this is the twisted, ironic way the divorce issue is going to continue being discussed on the national stage, then we are in for some great fun, boys and girls. While most opinion polls carried out by various national newspapers have shown a growing trend for a strict divorce law preceded by a stable, good-natured and democratic debate at all levels of Maltese society, you only need one git to mess it all up.

The political platform already has an interesting array of actors upon it. Opposition leader Joseph Muscat had long declared his personal view on the issue before government MP Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando sprang his surprise Private Member’s Bill in the House of Representatives, much to the obvious chagrin of Prime Minister Gonzi. After all, Gonzi himself had also made public his opposition to a divorce law

earlier.

The political cauldron has not stopped boiling since. The two major parties are fully aware that cross-party feelings will be stirred by the issue, even if other European and no less Catholic countries continue to wonder how we could possibly still be debating it when they have moved on to other, more serious, social topics. Both Labour and Nationalist parliamentary groups will eventually come to realise that their members have contrasting dissident views about divorce, which is after all a healthy thing to have in a free country.

But while Joseph Muscat has, from the very outset, declared his intention to give his MPs a free vote in Parliament whenever the issue comes up, Gonzi has preferred to simply tiptoe his way through the tulips by way of winning more precious time, hopefully getting a grip on the situation and finally finding a way out of the labyrinth.

Sadly for him, the opposite has occurred since Pullicino Orlando chose to sneak in from behind to introduce his Private Member’s Bill. I find it hard to believe that all this was an orchestrated Nationalist ploy to switch the public’s attention from the dire economic straits in which we find ourselves to the divorce issue. The Nationalists are, indeed, great masters of the alienation game, but I daresay this is more of a throbbing, home-made time bomb than anything else.

The ecclesiastical stage is no less colourful and pulsating. While the head of the Maltese Church, Archbishop Pawl Cremona, was reassuring, right from the start, in his insistence that the issue should be debated in a sane and responsible manner, other top Curia officials were not so willing to play the same game.

First to make a false start was Monsignor Anton Gouder, the Curia’s Pro Vicar, who, when pushed by a good interviewer, blurted out the word “sin” during a radio interview. His statement got the negative reaction it deserved from both within the Church and outside it. It is clear people are not prepared to let this nation go through yet another turbulent politico-religious dispute over something as clear-cut as having a divorce law that citizens would be free to make use of or not, according to their own personal beliefs and non-beliefs.

A perceptibly embarrassed local Church saw a good number of its own members coming out against Mgr Gouder’s use of the word “sin” that would automatically contaminate the whole debate. The rest of us, from Left to Right, quickly gnawed into him like a school of hungry piranhas.

Then, when most people would have rightly thought that the Archbishop could have taken some time off to admonish Mgr Gouder over his “slip of the tongue”, out came the officious-sounding Judicial Vicar with an even more vociferous claim about judges and lawyers committing a sin if and when involved with divorce proceedings. The Archbishop must have had to make a quick, inelegant pirouette to meet the impact of this latest “sin” tirade from another high official of the Church.

Former President Fenech Adami was among the quickest to rightly claim that the comments made by Judicial Vicar Arthur Said Pullicino “blur the distinction between the Church’s teachings and the application of the law”. I find myself in the rare situation where I agree with Dr Fenech Adami about something, as when he insisted that “right now there is a lot of confusion and much loose talk which is leading nowhere” and that “this subject merits more objective, clear thinking”.

The former President did not stop there. Though still markedly against divorce, Dr Fenech Adami offered instant wisdom when he insisted that the State “must consider the circumstances needed for a society to live properly”. Some have arguably interpreted his intervention as a face-saving way out for the bewildered Gonzi administration.

One obviously looks forward to the outcome of meetings – reportedly called by the Archbishop – with Church protagonists in an attempt to “bring about a more uniform approach”. The Church, after all, is fully entitled to prepare a detailed official position on the matter, but whatever that can predictably be, it will only concern Catholics who still blindly follow its teachings. Those who no longer do and the rest of us have every right to have a law to which they can refer if ever required. It makes absolutely no sense to have a country that offers civil marriage but still denies the right to civil divorce.

Mgr Said Pullicino is quoted as saying that “you can be an atheist, that is your business, but... God does not evaporate, whether you like it or not.” Father forgive me, but can this also be translated into “you can be a Catholic, that is your business, but the State is for everyone, whether you like it or not.”