The inconvenient truth about Article 2

As arguments for and against divorce are flung about like confetti, it was perhaps inevitable that the controversy surrounding Article 2 (Chap 1) of the Constitution would be resuscitated almost 50 years after it divided and bruised the nation.

Incredibly, some people still seem to think that Article 2 represents some sort of an unbeatable trump card in any debate about Church-State relations. The argument usually sounds like this: the Constitution states that ‘the religion of Malta is the Roman Catholic Religion’; as such, anything that goes against the Roman Catholic Religion is unconstitutional, and therefore automatically illegal.

There are three basic problems with this line of reasoning. One, it overlooks both the existence of Article 32 (Chap 4) of the same Constitution - which grants freedom on equal footing to all religions - as well as the fact that the fundamental charter of human rights (with its freedoms of association and expression) is also entrenched in the same Constitution.

Two, it is equally applicable to a whole host of other issues apart from divorce, including (among others) artificial contraception, adultery, homosexuality…. and of course cohabitation, which is currently being regulated by the same party so viscerally opposed to divorce. This brings me to the third reason, which is slightly more complex.

All those invoking Article 2 clearly do not know the full story of how it got itself inserted in the Constitution in the first place. If they did, they would probably think twice before reminding us all of this somewhat shabby episode in our recent history. As the name suggests, the Independence Constitution was to an extent the fruit of Independence negotiations between George Borg Olivier's PN government and the British Crown in 1962.

This may come as a surprise to some people – though not to any historians, who have written extensively on the subject – but the Church's unstated position back then was against Independence. The Church had opposed Integration in the 1950s, too; and in both cases its reasoning was more or less the same. Regarding Integration, the Church feared that Malta’s absorption into the machinery of the United Kingdom – with limited representation in Whitehall, etc – would strengthen Anglican/Protestant presence and influence on the island, and foster a culture of permissiveness that would bring about things like divorce.

The argument with Independence was similar, but even more interesting. Archbishop Mikiel Gonzi, it seems, just didn’t trust Borg Olivier to reserve for the Church the same absolute power it had wielded for generations under Malta’s colonial rulers. One one level he doubted Borg Olivier’s actual prowess as a negotiator, and feared that he might be convinced to bargain away some of the Church's extensive privileges.

On another level, he also doubted Borg Olivier’s actual disposition towards the Church – Borg Olivier having enjoyed a reputation as a ‘liberal’ of sorts at the time. Unsurprisingly, Bishop Gonzi’s distrust of the Labour Party was even greater. But being a pragmatic person, he understood that it was simply not possible to keep Mintoff out of power forever (though not exactly for want of trying, as the Church had left literally no stone unturned to this end: sabotaging the Integration referendum, excommunicating the Labour Party executive, making it a mortal sin to vote Labour, etc.)

Bishop Gonzi was therefore understandably concerned that - with Malta an independent country under Mintoff, and no British governor to keep the government in check - it would be payback time for the much-maligned Malta Labour Party.

All this is now ancient history, amply documented in numerous history books (I recommend Henry Frendo’s Origins of Maltese Statehood, but there are others). Nonetheless the question remains: if (in the 1950s), the choice was between Integration and Independence, and the Catholic Church was opposed to both… then what, exactly, was its own vision for the future of Malta? The answer is simple: the Church wanted nothing more than for Malta to remain a British protectorate forever.

This because the British (like the Romans before them) knew better than to mess with a country’s internal religious issues, and unlike either Mintoff or Borg Olivier, they could be relied upon not interfere with the Church’s local dominion.

But like I said earlier, Gonzi was also a realist, and as such he knew that his own preferred scenario was not tenable in the long term. By 1962 he had resigned himself to the eventual loss of the insurance cover previously guaranteed by the British Crown, and so – facing a choice between Independence under the PN, or Independence under the MLP – he grudgingly backed Borg Olivier over Mintoff (who by the way was still excommunicated at the time).

But the Church’s support came complete with a hefty price-tag. Gonzi would only publicly back Independence ahead of the 1962 referendum if satisfied with the outcome of negotiations between Borg Olivier and the British government… and he even insisted on a written acknowledgement of the Church’s privileged status as Malta’s only moral torchbearer. (Incidentally he had used the exact same strategy with Mintoff in the 1956 Integration referendum).

On his part Borg Olivier soon realized that having the Church as an ally, while useful to win elections, was more cumbersome than it at first seemed. While in London to negotiate the terms of Britain’s handover in 1962, he is reported to have complained that Gonzi was ‘exasperating’ in his demands, and was simultaneously weakening Malta's bargaining position with the British.

In an interview with MaltaToday, Daniel Micallef - the former Speaker of the House who had accompanied Borg Olivier to London - described the situation succinctly: “Borg Olivier used to receive daily phone calls from Archbishop Gonzi urging him to accept the terms imposed by the British...” Gonzi's reason for wanting to close negotiations abruptly was that he himself had achieved his own objective - Article 2 of the Constitution of Malta - and was clearly not interested in any other aspect of Malta's Independence.

I will leave it to you to decide whether inclusion of Article 2 was something to be proud of or not in the long run. One thing, however, is clear even at a glance. Throughout the entire proceedings - from Integration in the 1950s to Independence in the 1960s - the Church’s only motivation was to preserve its own power and influence.

How different is that from the same Church’s current attitude towards divorce? Think of this, before citing Article 2 as some kind of trump card in the divorce debate...