Curia defends decision to target children with divorce propaganda

Specifically addressing minors in his pastoral letter last Sunday, Archbishop Paul Cremona told his young audience that the choice facing the country was one “between good and evil.”

“Children, you know well the difficult times we are going through because of divorce, meaning that two people leave each other and marry others… as children, you aren’t responsible for the decisions that adults make for you, but I am worried for your sakes as I know that you can suffer a lot because of what us adults do.”

The Archbishop exhorted children to pray so that their parents take their decision “based on what Jesus wishes them to do.”

Social workers and teachers were reportedly livid. “The Church is using children like an irresponsible couple going through separation,” one teacher was quoted as saying.

“In the same way that we say that children shouldn’t be involved in disputes that take place between adults, by the same reasoning I don’t see why children should be involved or be used in any way during the debate,” a social worker told Sunday newspaper It-Torca.

Others – including one child psychologist who spoke to this newspaper anonymously – argued that the Church appeared to be planting doubts in the children’s minds regarding their parents’ intentions… a fact which could undermine the parents’ authority over their children, with possibly negative repercussions on family unity.

But responding to these charges, a spokesman for the Archbishop’s Curia claimed he saw nothing wrong or unusual about dragging children into an essentially adult political matter such as divorce.

“Kindly note that what you are referring to as ‘using children in a political debate’ is nothing but a children’s version to the Pastoral Letter which was issued by the Episcopal Conference,” Church PRO Kevin Papagiorcopulo said. “You must be aware that we have been publishing the children’s version to these pastoral letters since 2009...”

Papagiorcopulo also denied that the issue is itself political. “I believe that it is very inappropriate to refer to the teachings of the Church contained in the Pastoral Letter as taking part ‘in a political debate’... the divorce question is as old as Moses at least, and it always had a heavy moral and religious value. The political aspect comes in because laws are enacted by parliament.”

Among the laws enacted by Parliament are a number designed to protect children from exploitation on a number of levels. But while the law is painstakingly clear regarding the use of children for the purposes of marketing and/or commercial advertising, as yet there is no corresponding legislation to protect minors from political exploitation.

This state of affairs leaves Maltese children vulnerable to being drawn into political campaigns without fully understanding the long-term potential consequences.

Shortly after the 2008 election – in which images of children were gratuitously used on political billboards and television adverts – former Children’s Commissioner Carmen Zammit admitted that she was concerned about the situation.

“We are working on a set of policy guidelines to regulate the use of children in electoral campaigns,” she said at the time: hinting that these issues were to be included in the National Children Policy, which was due for publication at the end of 2010.

Three months beyond this deadline, neither the National Children’s Policy nor any legal protection of children from political explanation is yet in sight.

Education Minister Dolores Cristina explained that the delay was in part due to changes in EU policy, to be announced this month.

“A Draft Children’s Policy was to be handed to the Ministry by the end of 2010 to be vetted before launching it for public consultation. The working group preparing the policy is taking a bottom-up approach involving children at the drafting stage. The EU has just launched the new EU Strategy on the Rights of the Child which will be adopted in April. This had to be taken into consideration in the current drafting. The group is also expecting the results of a report commissioned by the Commissioner for Children to take into consideration before submitting the final policy draft.”

She added that the policy will “seek to prohibit any form of exploitation”, but stopped short of elaborating on the case in question.

Current Children’s Commissioner Helen Damato, on the other hand, offered a vague justification in her guarded replies. “Children are direct participants in the divorce issue,” she told MaltaToday.

“As I stated earlier, children should be spared from any type of propaganda whether it is for or against divorce, but they should be informed about the issue. We have to remember that while adults separate and divorce, children do not separate nor divorce from their parents. They have a right to access both parents whether they are married, separated or divorced.”