THE CATHOLIC Church suffered a setback in Malta at the weekend when a referendum proposing the legalisation of divorce passed by a 54 per cent majority.
The Yes victory in traditionally conservative 95 per cent Catholic Malta, where 72 per cent of the faithful still attend Sunday Mass, came at the end of a bitter campaign in which the church had lobbied hard against divorce.
Not only the Catholic Church but Maltese prime minister Lawrence Gonzi of the Nationalist Party had also campaigned for a No vote in an electoral contest which cut across party lines.
Mr Gonzi appeared yesterday to accept that a Divorce bill would now be introduced in parliament, saying: “Even though the result is not what I had wished for, now it is our duty to see that the will of the majority is respected.”
The No campaign, which acknowledged funding from church groups, had argued that the introduction of divorce would increase both marriage breakdown and the consequent suffering of children.
One No campaign poster showed a sad little girl saying “Vote in my name, vote No”, while another showed a small boy with his head in his hands, with written below “With Divorce our children suffer”.
Deborah Schembri, a Yes campaign leaders, on Saturday accused the pro-church lobby of waging a “crusade” against divorce among the island’s 400,000 population.
Maltese media reports claimed that, some priests had called from the pulpit on their parishioners to vote No, with unconfirmed reports claiming that some had even denied the Eucharist to parishioners intending to vote Yes.
Indicative of the bitter campaign was a letter from the Maltese bishops, released on Saturday evening before the result was known, in which they appeared to hold out an olive branch to those who may have felt wronged by the words or actions of some clergy:
“We have just come to the end of the referendum, and each and every one of us must now look to where we were a source of pain to others, even personally.”
The statement added that whatever the result of the vote, it was important to translate ideas into “concrete” measures to help young people enter into marriage with greater commitment.
Inevitably, the Yes campaign leaders greeted the outcome warmly with Labour Party leader Joseph Muscat claiming that yesterday marked the birth of a “new” Malta.
Turnout for the vote was 72 per cent.