By any objective reading of Malta’s Constitution, we are a secular, liberal parliamentary democracy. By secular, I mean a government which is not controlled by a religious body, and is not itself concerned with religious or spiritual matters.

By contrast, a theocracy is a government in which its rule is directed overridingly by religious beliefs, similar to those that existed in the Middle Ages in Europe, well over a thousand years ago.

Today, Islamic theocracies exist in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Yemen, the United Arab Emirates, Pakistan and elsewhere. It is fair to generalize that most theocracies are authoritarian in nature and, because their laws are based on Sharia or Islamic law, fairly extreme in their application. The only Christian theocracy is in the Vatican State. Iran and Vatican City are the only states ruled by a religious figure.

Despite these definitions, some people in Malta may still believe that under Article 2 of our Constitution, the Maltese Church can dictate to the government and the people of Malta what they are to do on lay, social issues like marriage or divorce or, indeed, other areas such as censorship, euthanasia, abortion, or even birth control – and expect compliance.

Article 2.1 states: “The religion of Malta is the Roman Catholic Apostolic religion.” Self-evidently, it is the declared official religion of Malta, just as the Church of England is the established church in England.

The misunderstandings arise, however, over some peoples’ interpretation of Article 2.2. This states: “The authorities of the Roman Apostolic Church have the duty and the right to teach which principles are right and which are wrong.”

Nobody can dispute that the Church has every right and duty to teach its principles, as it sees them. It should have every opportunity and be given every right to do this. However, nowhere does our Constitution state that the citizen has to learn, to believe, or to follow those teachings. To force all citizens to do so would be to adopt what theocracies, such as Saudi Arabia and Iran, do – a practice which would be utterly alien to a functioning, mature, liberal, parliamentary democracy, which we pride ourselves on being.

The citizen in Malta is free in all consciousness to accept or reject the teachings of the Catholic Church by applying his/her own rational analysis, intelligence, judgement and the exercise of his or her free will to a problem. And with this freedom comes the right to comment if these teachings infringe any perceived human or civil rights, whether it is, for example, the liberty to practise birth control (as most Maltese clearly do) or the freedom to use a condom to avoid spreading Aids.

By what objective criteria should the correct balance in a debate on divorce in a modern parliamentary democracy be judged?

In June 2008, Archbishop Cremona set out the Church’s position on aspects of divorce. He quoted approvingly from Pope Benedict XVI’s encyclical of 2005. It is worth repeating the relevant extracts for these affect every element of today’s dilemma about divorce. Pope Benedict stated: “The just ordering of society and the State is a central responsibility of politics… the two spheres of State and Church are distinct, yet always inter-related… the Church cannot and must not take upon herself the political battle to bring about the most just society possible. She cannot and must not replace the State. Yet at the same time she cannot and must not remain on the sidelines in the fight for justice. She has to play her part through rational argument. A just society must be the achievement of politics, not of the Church.”

This is the position the Archbishop has ostensibly adopted. Quite correctly, he does not claim that the doctrine of the Church should automatically have the force of law, only that its views should be heard. If the law happens to coincide with the Church’s specific teachings it is because the law reflects some secular value independent of religious belief.

Our legislators are elected to a secular Parliament with a duty to cater for the needs of society as a whole, recognising that minorities also have the right to the state’s support. Legislators cannot properly represent the heterogeneous society that Malta has become while being religiously sectarian. There are different faiths within the state, but there can only be one law.

A government that legislates only in the interests of the majority is setting itself against the principles of social justice. Genuine social justice requires recognition by the state of the freedom and rights of all individuals and the right, which every individual has, to well being under the law, without any form of discrimination.

Individuals must decide how to behave in accordance with their own religious or other beliefs. All major religions, including the Catholic Church, accept that in a democracy Parliament’s decisions on what sort of behaviour should be lawful are not necessarily the same as what is considered morally right on a purely religious basis. This is why sodomy and adultery in Malta are no longer criminal offences even though the Church forbids them.

It is the duty of society and the state to weigh up the issues on the basis of the interests of the community as a whole, not simply on the basis of private religious beliefs. Yet, rather than allowing all citizens to be protected equally – no matter what their private religious beliefs – some elements in the Maltese Church have chosen to apply threats and coercion, under pain of mortal sin, to those who would consider the introduction of the legal remedy of divorce as a civil right and a force for the greater common good.

What has been so disturbing about the outburst of bile by some monsignors and parish priests – epitomized by the widespread preaching against divorce by several clergy, including the outrageous distribution of leaflets by anti-divorce activists, invoking the name of Our Lady of Sorrows before Easter − is the lack of respect shown for the Archbishop’s position (who presumably was not complicit) and the lack of curial discipline. This, and the Pastoral Letters being issued, leads one to doubt that any vote on the issue will be clear of the Maltese Church’s heavy-handed interference.

Following the teachings of any religion is a matter of personal conscience, not legal duty. The enforcement of that duty depends not on the law of the State but on personal conscience. Of course, most emphatically, people are entitled to hold a particular religious view of marriage. But this is a matter of private conviction, as opposed to the basis for the enactment in Parliament of a law that applies to everyone.

It does not follow that divorce, when introduced, would deny freedom of religious practice to those conscientiously opposed to it. What is of fundamental importance, however, in a pluralistic democracy (as opposed to a theocracy) is that the distinction is maintained between the right of individuals to hold religiously-based convictions. And the right of others not to have those religiously-based convictions imposed upon them on a civil issue, like the dissolution of marriage, under threat of mortal sin. This distinction is crucial to a mature, liberal democracy.