Not unexpectedly, Martin Scicluna proved unable to resist the temptation of taking a good snipe at the recent pastoral letter issued by the Bishops of Malta and Gozo on the occasion of the publication of the draft law on human embryo protection. (“IVF: Only in Malta”, TMIS, 12 August.)
This long-awaited and discussed piece of legislation regulating the practice of IVF in Malta is recognised by all and sundry to be sorely needed to install some order in the free for all situation currently existing in these islands.
The matter of IVF concerns a highly sophisticated biomedical process aimed at assisting infertile couples achieve pregnancy. It has a long history of research and development going back over a century and culminating in 1978 in the birth in Oldham UK of the first ‘test tube’ baby in human history, Louise Brown.
It was obvious from the start that IVF and Embryo Transfer implied serious medical, ethical, social and legal considerations. The Catholic Church, as befitting a major religion, has long turned over the issues at stake and taken a position in favour of respect for human life from the moment of conception together with recognizing the special relationship that a man and a woman enter into on marriage, plus the responsibilities of parenthood.
The Church has not wavered from this position it took 44 years ago.
So it should be no surprise that the Church in Malta has reiterated these principles at this time on IVF, in a sober Pastoral letter couched in moderate terms well within the constitutional parameters afforded it in the Malta Constitution.
It is also paternal in tone rather than condescending as has been said of it, and not lacking in consideration and compassion for the less advantaged of our brethren. The Church’s counsel is not accompanied by any penal threat or sanction and it is for the State to accept or reject them.
Martin Scicluna however, in his intemperate bias against the Church, calls the pastoral letter “inept” “, he snarls at the “so called Magisterium”, accuses the Church of “intransigence” and of “fighting the advance of medical science with medieval superstition”. He also falsely implies that it claims, “that its doctrine should automatically have the force of law”.
On top of all this, he resorts to vulgar expression as when he describes the Bishops “having no hesitation in putting the boot in if their Magisterium is transgressed”, language unbecoming in an officer and a gentleman.
And in all this name-calling he attempts to disguise his prejudice by pretending Pope Benedict agrees with him and by interspersing generous concessions to the Church’s right to express its views publicly.
Such rare cant is hard to beat.
Joseph A. Muscat
TA’ XBIEX