After the preliminary hollow praises for the Maltese Church, Martin Scicluna gets back on his hobby horse and has a merry tilt at one of the leaders of the Church.

This time he picks on the Bishop of Gozo for having the audacity to stand up for the teachings of the Magisterium of the Catholic Church, a role for which he was anointed.

He adds to the confusion by appearing to support a leading Maltese Church exponent on the ethics of Human Reproduction Technology while reserving his disagreement with the same ethicist who states that IVF is “morally objectionable to the Catholic Church”.

Today’s London Times leads with the story of a man who fathered some 600 offspring through use of a sperm bank. Such are the obscenities that often follow in the wake of modern human reproduction technology

To add to the illogicality of his article, Scicluna challenges the Church’s role in laying down moral standards, implying also that it claims to be a sole arbiter.

Is he here suggesting that moral standards should be entrusted to a Select Committee of the House of Representatives?

And as to the teaching of the Catholic Church, is that not a right embedded in our Constitution and endorsed by Parliament?

Martin Scicluna is of the view that IVF is just another medical treatment when it is clearly more than that. This betrays a lack of sensibility on Scicluna’s part in this highly complex problem, a deficiency that does not qualify him to speak with any authority on the matter.

Joseph A. Muscat

TA’ XBIEX