'Divorce' versus 'values'?

"I consider it to be worse if a country legislates in favour of cohabitation than if it legislates in favour of divorce. At least through divorce, the State is saying that it still believes in the institution of marriage. On the other hand cohabitation is by its very nature something which cannot be controlled.”

I opened my piece with the above quote for a specific reason. This is what theologian Fr Rene Camilleri said with regards to divorce and cohabitation. With respect, I feel that Fr Rene knows more about Catholic values than most. I fail to understand how some of the most prominent ‘crusaders’ against divorce base their arguments on Catholic values. How do they equate advocating the formalisation of cohabitation as a form of ‘second class marriage’, to these values?

One of the most prominent of these ‘crusaders’ is my colleague, Minister Austin Gatt. He is vociferously advocating that the Nationalist Party should formally declare itself against divorce. This is rather strange for two reasons. He himself has been saying, from day one, that he knows that the time will come when divorce has to be introduced in our country. He simply feels that it is not the right time as yet.

Were divorce to be against the ‘Nationalist values’ he so often mentions there would never be a right time to introduce it. Minister Gatt was also part of the Nationalist Party executive committee when it approved, time and time again, pro-divorce candidates – many of them known to be very close to him. I ask: if divorce is really against the ‘values’ he cherishes as a Nationalist how is it that he did not oppose these candidatures?

A number of pro-divorce Nationalists are surprised when the original motto of the party, Religio et Patria, is thrown at them as justification for the conservative stance expected of them. With respect, I have been militating in the Nationalist Party since 1980. This is the first time I recall this motto having the cobwebs dusted off it and being bandied around like some form of mantra. In those days our battle cry used to be ‘Work, Justice, Liberty’ (Xoghol, Gustizzja, Libertà). We believed we were fighting for social justice. That is what the divorce debate is all about.

Going even further back, Dr George Borg Olivier is renowned for the justified stands he took against the heavy-handedness of the local Curia. A notable example is his opposition to the ‘Child Migration Scheme’ organised by the Labour Party and the Church in the 1950s. The Catholic Church has had a profound positive impact on our society. But affairs of the state and the Church should always be kept separate in a modern democracy.

I would like to present a counter-argument to those who oppose the Divorce Bill motion on the grounds that it was not in the Nationalist Party electoral programme in the 2008 elections. I can mention a series of measures which this government is taking which are not in that programme. Some of them controversial and most will have far-reaching consequences. I will, however, compare like with like.

The Electoral Programme for 2008 did not include a proposal for a Cohabitation Law. The last time this proposal was made was in the 1998 programme when Dr Eddie Fenech Adami was still leader. In those days we were fighting to rid our country of the Labour Party in an election called merely 22 months after their electoral victory in 1996. Surely no one can argue that the fact that cohabitation was included in a programme 13 years ago is justification for its introduction by this administration. Politics is not a static art. Situations change drastically, on a daily basis. Something which was drawn up 13 years ago by a party led by a different leader may be rendered irrelevant by changing circumstances.

I agree with Fr Rene Camilleri. Introducing a Cohabitation Law in a legislative vacuum, as was intended by this administration, is irresponsible. I agree that this would be tantamount to a declaration against marriage.

I support the motto chosen by the ‘Iva ghal ligi tad-Divorzju’ movement, which I form part of: ‘Yes to Divorce, Yes to Marriage’. I, too, am ‘not for turning’. I firmly believe in the institution of marriage.