President Emeritus and former Prime Minister Eddie Fenech Adami yesterday said he “hopes” the majority of MPs will vote according to their conscience and against the introduction of divorce when the time comes.

In an interview on the Ghandi Xi Nghid radio programme, Dr Fenech Adami said he was against the idea of holding a referendum on divorce, since moral issues, unlike those of a political nature, should not necessarily be decided by a majority.

He highlighted that the referendum was consultative, and that as such it does not bind MPs to vote in favour of divorce if that vote goes against their conscience and moral beliefs.

The difference between the referendum in 2003, in which the electorate was asked whether it wants Malta to join the EU, and the recent divorce referendum, was that while the former was purely political, the latter is “looking to challenge our social values”.

By all means, he argued, MPs have to take note of the referendum result, which he described as a “negative shock”, but stressed that compassion for those who are suffering should not stand in the way of one’s moral obligations.

“We have to improve the lives of those who are suffering, without, however, destroying our moral principles,” Dr Fenech Adami said.

He added that he had been predicting that the majority of the electorate would have voted against divorce, but the referendum result showed that “although there is still a strong segment of the Maltese population that is still very strong and solid in its values, it is time to acknowledge that the values of our society have changed, and changed drastically”.

Quoting a Biblical passage from the Acts of the Apostles, recounting the shipwreck of St Paul’s and how “it was necessary…to set foot on this island”, Dr Fenech Adami remarked that this passage was, perhaps, appreciated more in the past than it is right now.

“We upheld our Catholic traditions for more than two millennia, but perhaps we are now starting to distance ourselves from some of these traditions,” he said.

Speaking about whether the introduction of divorce could lead to the introduction of other issues, such as abortion, Dr Fenech Adami commented, “This is the biggest danger. We are being taken over by a new wave of totalitarianism which may be worse than communism and fascism. The reason abortion was frequently mentioned in this referendum campaign is because the introduction of one could easily pave the way for the introduction of the other. Aren’t we already talking about introducing same-sex marriages?”

In a call in to the programme, professor and philosopher Joe Friggieri said he believes that those MPs who voted against divorce, but who have already publicly declared that they will vote in favour of divorce in Parliament, out of respect for the people’s wishes, will not necessarily contradict themselves in doing so, “since the circumstances have now changed”.

Referring to the Church’s contribution during the divorce referendum, Dr Fenech Adami stated that the Church acted very prudently without going overboard, but he said he felt the Church had succumbed to the people’s feelings that they could decide for themselves about divorce.

“Just because the Church made its voice heard during the campaign definitely does not mean that it embarked on a crusade against divorce,” he pointed out, and described the criticism against Bishop Mario Grech as having been “wrong”.

He disagreed with suggestions that the referendum result means that the PN has now lost its soul, and outlined that he still recognises a PN “similar to the one I once led.

“However, there are elements in the party propagating liberalism. The dangers are there and we could get carried away with the trends of our times”.