Wednesday, December 11, 2013, 16:10
Auxiliary bishop Charles Scicluna this afternoon said the Church supported calls for an impact study on adoptions by gay couples which took the Maltese scenario into account.
In a statement this afternoon he said the promotion of the best interest of the child should always be the paramount principle when discussing and legislating on the adoption of minors according to the constant doctrine of the Catholic Church.
A child, he said, had the right to know his or her parents and to be brought up by them - in all cases: a man and a woman.
In those cases where the child could not be brought up by his or her parents, the adoptive parents should follow the mother - father pattern found in nature. Adoption by a single parent was an exception.
Bishop Scicluna said there was no right to parenthood or to adopt.
“There is the right of the child to be cared for.”
He said the Church was against putting children in an environment where the common and natural experience of the conjugal love between a man and a woman was substituted by quasi-marital relationship between a man and a man, or between a woman and a woman.
“Let us not play with the innocence of our children,” he appealed.
Bishop Scicluna noted that the Civil Unions Bill amended the law on filiation: the law that determines who was to be considered a parent.
It introduced two new sets of legal parents: John and John; Jane and Jane.
“What is the say of the child in this issue? Who will choose to give ‘Baby A’ a mother and a mother or a father and a father, rather than a mother and a father? How will this affect the upbringing of adoptive children?
“This is a fundamental change in the way Maltese society is set up. We believe that this development is not beneficial to minors and to society in general. This is not about the rights of gay people but about creating a new type of family where the founding principle is not marriage between a man and a woman but any social partnership.
“In this context, we support calls for an impact study which takes the Maltese scenario into account,” Bishop Scicluna said.
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