http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20090810/local/church-in-denial-on-question-of-divorceMonday, 10th August 2009
The Church's argument that the availability of divorce causes marriage breakdown is based on false foundations, Martin Scicluna, the lead author of a report calling for urgent legislation on divorce, has said.
Mr Scicluna described the Church as being "in denial" over the rising incidence of annulment and separation.
And nowhere was its refusal to recognise the human suffering caused by broken marriages more blatant than in the way it kept referring cynically to "walking out of the marriage" as though that was how people undergoing marital breakdown approached separation or civil dissolution.
In the Church's eyes these people had "failed". "You made your bed. Now you lie on it" appeared to be the only response of which it was capable. But nobody in a happy marriage wanted to divorce, Mr Scicluna said.
He was giving a presentation in reply to a report by Proġett Impenn, a Church initiative made up of different organisations which work in favour of families and marriage.
The Church report came in reaction to a document supporting the introduction of divorce, of which Mr Scicluna is the lead author, published by The Today Public Policy Institute in May.
The Church's argument that it could not accept the civil dissolution of marriage after legal separation was not of itself a sufficient case for people who did not hold the same doctrinal views to be prevented from seeking divorce and having the right to re-marry, he argued.
"To allow for a mature, adult relationship recognised by society, friends and family, if not by the Church, should be the duty and objective of the State," he said.
To say that divorce caused marriage breakdown, rather than offered a legal remedy for the breakdown, was distorted logic. Marital discord and marriage breakdown preceded, often by years, legal separation or divorce.
Recourse to legal separation or divorce, far from being the cause of the breakdown, was a civilised way of reducing the negative consequences on society of marriages that failed irrevocably and allowed people to re-build their lives.
He said that in 1995 there were 5,098 annulled, divorced or legally separated individuals in Malta out of a total number of married individuals at that time of 181,875 - amounting to about three per cent. By 2005, this figure had risen to 13,354 out of 195,523 married individuals - a proportion of seven per cent.
The forecast by Discern, the Institute for Research on the Signs of the Times, was that the number of individuals who would be separated, annulled or divorced in 2015 would amount to about 17 per cent of all married people, more than doubling the number of individuals in broken marriages over the figures just four years ago and more than five times the proportion of 20 years before.
Between 2006 and 2008 there were 1,028 new or introduced ecclesiastical and civil annulments, with 844 cases pending, about 3,500 sworn separation applications submitted or mediations introduced, and over 1,000 separation cases pending - a total of 6,360 couples, or up to 12,720 individuals whose cases were in the pipeline, the majority of whom were likely to end up separated or annulled.
"What is it, therefore, about the Maltese Church that makes it adopt a high-handed attitude to the facts? Why is it that it appears not to wish to consider the severity or validity of these figures?" Mr Scicluna asked.
"What is it that it does not understand about a 160 per cent recorded increase in the number of individuals in broken marriages of all kinds between 1995 and 2005? Or the 175 per cent recorded increase over the same period of those legally separated?
"Or the estimated increase between 13,354 individuals in 2005 and the 35,000 divorced, annulled or separated individuals within the next six years?"
The Maltese Church was in denial, he insisted.
[Click on the hyperlink above to view the comments on the Times' website.]
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Saturday, 8th August 2009 - 10:10CET
The church's argument that the availability of divorce causes marriage breakdown and that it is in society’s interests to forbid it is based on false foundations, Martin Scicluna, the lead author of the Today Public Policy Institute's report "For Worse, For Better: Remarriage after legal separation" said.
In a presentation given in reply to a report by Progett Impenn, Mr Scicluna said that nowhere was the Church’s refusal to recognise the human suffering and difficulty caused by broken marriages more blatant than in the way it kept referring cynically to “walking out of the marriage” as though that was how people going through the trauma of a broken marriage approached separation or civil dissolution.
In the Church’s eyes these people ‘failed’. “You made your bed. Now you lie on it” appeared to be the only response of which it was capable, he said.
But nobody in a happy marriage wanted to divorce, Mr Scicluna pointed out.
The church's argument that it could not accept the civil dissolution of marriage after legal separation was not of itself a sufficient argument that it was in society’s wider interest to prevent the parties to an irretrievably broken marriage, who did not hold the same doctrinal views, from acknowledging that the marriage was over and to prevent subsequent re-marriage.
"To allow for a mature, adult relationship recognised by society, friends and family, if not by the Church, should be the duty and objective of the State," he said.
To say that divorce caused marriage breakdown, rather than offered a legal remedy for the breakdown, was distorted logic. Marital discord and marriage breakdown preceded, often by years, legal separation or divorce.
Recourse to legal separation or divorce, far from being the cause of the breakdown, was a civilised way of reducing the negative consequences on society of marriages which failed irrevocably and allowing people to re-build their lives.
He said that in 1995 there were 5098 annulled, divorced or legally separated individuals in Malta out of a total number of married individuals at that time of 181,875 – amounting to about three percent. By 2005, this figure had risen to 13,354 out of 195,523 married individuals – a proportion of seven percent.
The forecast by Discern, the Institute for Research on the Signs of the Times was that the number of individuals who would be separated, annulled or divorced in 2015 would amount to about 17 percent as a proportion of all married people, more than doubling the number of individuals in broken marriages over the figures just four years ago and more than five times the proportion of 20 years before.
Between 2006 and 2008 there were 1,028 new or introduced ecclesiastical and civil annulments, with 844 cases pending, and about 3,500 sworn separation applications submitted or mediations introduced, over 1,000 separation cases pending – a total of 6,360 couples, or up to 12,720 individuals whose cases were in the pipeline, the majority of whom were likely to end up separated or annulled.
“What is it, therefore, about the Maltese Church that makes it adopt a high-handed attitude to the facts? Why is it that it appears not to wish to consider the severity or validity of these figures?
“What is it that it does not understand about a 160% recorded increase in the number of individuals in broken marriages of all kinds between 1995 and 2005? Or the175 percent recorded increase over the same period of those legally separated?
“Or the estimated increase between 13,354 individuals in 2005 and the 35,000 divorced, annulled or separated individuals within the next six years.”
But the Maltese church was in denial.
“This is cynical, irresponsible, unjust, uncharitable and hypocritical and leads it to put forward the kind of self-serving arguments which run through its report.”
Mr Scicluna argued that if the Church really believed its own assertion that divorce was the direct cause of marriage breakdown then it would in logic oppose legal separations as well. But it did not.
Mr Scicluna insisted that the state, through its legislation, had to decide what was best for the whole of society, striking the proper balance between the human rights and the natural aspirations of individuals and the interests of the community and society as a whole.
“The state should generally allow an individual to exercise his or her personal freedom of action provided no harm is done to society individually or as a whole. Put another way, it is not the role of the state to prevent action by an individual where there is no harm done to any one else or society as a whole.
“The next necessary step in the legal response in Malta is to allow people not only to separate, but also to view themselves as single people through the dissolution of their failed marriage with the opportunity of engaging in another relationship leading to marriage and a family based on the solid institution of marriage. This would be more beneficial to Maltese society, not detrimental," Mr Scicluna said.
[Click on the hyperlink above to view the comments on the Times' website.]
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See also:
Divorce not a cause for Marital Failure, 7th August 2009 Tim Ripard, Vienna Austria
Upholding Timeless Values Unhesitatingly, 5th August 2009, Klaus Vella Bardon, Attard
