The rumours and reports that President George Abela is refusing to sign the Civil Union Bill have long been circulating and, it would seem have finally received confirmation of sorts from the President’s own mouth speaking exactly after the meeting with the Pope, at which the same subject, as we report today, featured.

The resultant firestorm has shown once again that people are shaky as to their grasp of what the President effectively can or cannot do; that despite being approved by Parliament there remain large swathes of public opinion that cannot accept the very concept, let alone the possibility of gays adopting children; and that there is widespread concern about the galloping liberalisation of Maltese society which did not begin this past year but which is clearly escalating rapidly.

But the President’s last stand, if confirmed, is both ineffective and too late. The President is there, among other things, to confirm what the Parliament has enacted. As has been said, the only way for a President to signal his opposition to a particular law is by resigning.

Instead, if current reports are confirmed, it has been left until the very last, chaotic, days before his successor is announced and the current President ends his term for the country to hear rumours and reports that the President feels unable to sign the Bill and that thus the House of Representatives has put the bill on a temporary back burner until the President is out of San Anton, well-knowing that the next President, as she has already said, has no qualms about signing it.

No one in the know, from the President himself, is confirming or clearly denying the story. In an ideal world, the President would have spoken his mind clearly and in enough time to enable the country, and himself as well, to take the proper decisions.

The President does not seem to have had any religious or moral qualms about signing the Divorce Bill. Nor did he seem to have had any qualms about reading the controversial Speech at the beginning of the Legislature with its damning comments on past administrations. Nor about signing the equally controversial Investor Programme even though just two hours after he signed the bill, the government decided to withdraw it.

The country has been left asking what does it have a President for, since his moral qualms can only delay, but not block, a decision already approved by the House.

Clearly, the Constitution assigns to the President a role that is not that clear in people’s minds and such a conflict between the President’s personal conscience and the point of view of the House is not supposed to be there.

This is, among other things, what the country gets when borders get hazy and where Presidents put their religious beliefs above the functions of a Head of State, when Presidents insist and actually increase, as the current one has done, the religious content of their Presidency so that it again reinforces the perception of a State Religion.

When, just a few years ago, the country voted in favour of divorce, very much against the wishes of the party then in government, let alone the Church, the country was taking a decisive step towards a secular State. It was pointed out then, but nobody took notice, that this step was being taken without anything, such as a secular morality, replacing the church-mandated morality.

Now the country has moved on without any public debate about the limits of liberalisation, and the President, like many other people finding he does not like the extent of liberalisation as expressed by the Civil Unions Bill, then found out he is impotent to do anything about it.

It’s too late now, Mr President, too late.