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| Church Curia, Floriana |
One of the last public surveys conducted before the divorce referendum revealed that a substantial majority believed that, once divorced, you can remarry in church. Neatly turning religious dogma on its head, what man puts asunder God shall rejoin again.
Pure ignorance, right? Definitely. But it might also be looked at as a humorous proviso to a debate on a weighty cultural issue - who the church will consider to be a viable Catholic now that divorce is law. Here's why.
Catholic curias in many countries wait for divorce to be granted before accepting an application for a church annulment. Mgr Arthur Said Pullicino, who heads the local Ecclesiastical Tribunal such matters, has just declared that this is done "so the civil courts cannot intervene in the Church proceedings".
I'm either missing something here or Mgr Said Pullicino has a rather strange understanding of the separation of church and state. How is it even conceivable that a civil court 'intervenes' in an arcane religious ritual, which is all that a church annulment is?
Mgr Said Pullicino made another, even stranger, declaration. From now on, couples who start divorce proceedings would still be eligible to kick off their church annulment process. Why?
"You don’t need to have started separation proceedings to apply for an ecclesiastical annulment in the first place. So whether a couple is divorced or not will make no difference. Divorce is not a valid dissolution of marriage in the eyes of God," said the good monsignor.
Let me see if I get this straight. The church has just emerged from a bruising campaign against divorce only to have the head of its Ecclesiastical Tribunal place separations, legal or otherwise, on exactly the same moral footing as divorce.
After spending close to €200,000 to keep Malta divorce-free, the church is telling us that it makes absolutely no distinction between separated and divorced people seeking religious annulments.
Which begs, nay beseeches, the question: what was the point of the Curia's campaign against civil divorce?
6 comments:
My daughter got her divorce in Australia and later she got her annulment too.That's how it works abroad.
I think that the whole point is what you just stated Lou: you simply do not understand the mechanisms of how and why one starts annulment procedures.
You article just adds to the confusion in the minds of many people, some of which was generated from people like you.
j
From facebook:
Rene' Farrugia: The last question, is the one that thousands of Maltese had been asking in the last months. Maybe they tought that their brainwashing and fear techniques were still valid in 2011. Unfortunately they also thought that for us Maltese who are not Roman Catholic we had no rights in this country full of Christian love.
Your comments are most welcome. Ideally, you'd sign in your real name. But if you wish to remain anonymous please choose a pseudonym and stick to it. This will avoid the confusion caused when different people sign 'Anonymous'.
This has been an extremely difficult year for the Church in Malta - a annus horribilis.
Although I disagree with most of what the church says most of the time, I do feel sorry for the church hierarchy. In a way they have to move along with the times while keeping thier traditional beliefs and practices. It would be a very difficult task for any manager in an organisation wanting to bring change, let alone for the church which is built on traditions and dogmas.
One way in which I believe it could achieve more success is by focusing on values; goodness, trust, sincerity and the like rather than on its traditional ceremonies and sermons. But how can it do so, if it did the complete opposite in the case of the child abuse issue?
It has always been this way. I testified in a church annullment case some years ago where the persons involved had already been granted a civil annullment and had remarried civilly in the meanwhile. So technically when they where granted their church annullment they were already remarried
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