Judicial Vicar’s divorce warning ‘unacceptable interference’ – Borg Cardona

READ: Full text of the Judicial Vicar’s homily (in Maltese).

The suggestion made by Judicial Vicar Mgr Arthur Said Pullicino to judges and lawyers to be ‘conscientious objectors’ and “desist” from collaborating on divorce proceedings, has angered parts of the legal community.

Asked for his personal opinion, the outgoing president of the Chamber of Advocates, Andrew Borg Cardona, branded Mgr Said Pullicino’s comments as “an unacceptable interference of the Church in secular matters.”

Borg Cardona stressed his comments were strictly personal, given that the matter has still not been discussed by the Chamber.

But lawyer and newspaper columnist Anna Mallia has reacted by asking whether even members of the Church Tribunal – which grants marriage annulments – were also eligible for eternal damnation. “I wonder whether the amount of false reports made by the parties to a marriage annulment, and on which the tribunal just sits on for years or does nothing about them, makes them eligible for this punishment too?”

In a homily delivered yesterday during a mass that inaugurated the Church Tribunal’s forensic year, Mgr Said Pullicino warned that those who “cooperate” in the introduction of divorce, including judges who apply the law, would be “committing a grave sin”.

Said Pullicino, who is the judicial vicar for the Ecclesiastical Tribunal that examines petitions for marriage annulments, said “whoever cooperates in any way in the introduction of divorce, who applies the law and who seeks recourse to it, though not the innocent party, would be breaking God’s law and so would be committing a grave sin.”

Anna Mallia said that Said Pullicino’s comments were a “clear sign of fear on behalf of the Church which has failed to deliver its message to the brethren.”

She asked if being a Catholic would make one afraid of divorce.

But Nationalist MP Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando, who has presented a private member’s bill for the introduction of divorce, preferred not to engage with the Church on this matter.

“Mgr. Said Pullicino has every right to express himself according to his conscience,” Pullicino Orlando said.

Speaking to The Times, Said Pullicino took a dig at the Archbishop who recently stressed that the Church will not be engaging in any crusade against the divorce campaign. “The Archbishop cannot say anything different from what I am saying. He cannot approve of something that goes against God’s law,” he said.

When asked whether what he was asking from judges and lawyers interfered with the course of justice, Mgr Said Pullicino insisted justice could not go against God’s law.

“A lawyer who takes up the case of somebody who files for divorce, the guilty partner, cannot do it. He would be going against God’s law. On the other hand, the lawyer who takes up the case of the innocent party is doing nothing wrong.”