Agreement reached on Church-State concordat on civil marriage

Next Monday, Malta and the Holy See will sign an agreement on the Third Additional Protocol.

In a statement, the Church in Malta announced that an agreement has been reached on the revision of the 1992 Church-State agreement.

"Malta and the Holy See have announced that, further to technical talks held between representatives of both sides, agreement has been reached on a Third Additional Protocol to the Agreement between the Holy See and the Republic of Malta on the Recognition of Civil Effects to Canonical Marriages and to the Decisions of the Ecclesiastical Authorities and Tribunals about the Same Marriages signed on 3 February 1993," the Church said in a statement today.

The Third Additional Protocol will be amending parts of the Agreement thereof whilst it will also repeal the Second Additional Protocol signed on 6 January 1995.

Informal talks regarding the future of the 1993 Church-State agreement concerning marriage commenced when Prime Minister Joseph Muscat visited Pope Francis I at the Vatican in June.

Muscat, who won a landslide majority in last March's general election, announced his intention to revisit this contentious agreement immediately upon taking office. One of his first initiatives as Prime Minister was to a send a 'note verbale' to the Holy See to initiate discussions on the abrogation of the concordat.

Singed by former Prime Minister Eddie Fenech Adami and Foreign Minister Guido de Marco in 1993, the agreement envisages a partial concession to the Ecclesiastical Tribunal over the local civil courts when it comes to the annulment of Catholic marriages.

The signing of the Third Additional Protocol will take place on Monday, 27 January 2014 between the Hon. Dr George W. Vella, Minister for Foreign Affairs, and H.E. Msgr. Aldo Cavalli, Apostolic Nuncio, in the presence of the Hon. Dr Owen Bonnici, Mr Joseph Cole, Permanent Secretary, Dr Peter Grech, Attorney General and their Excellencies Msgr. Paul Cremona, Metropolitan Archbishop of Malta, Msgr. Mario Grech, Bishop of Gozo and President of the Maltese Episcopal Conference, and Msgr. Charles J. Scicluna, Auxiliary Bishop of Malta, and Msgr. Simón Bolívar Sánchez Carrión, Secretary of the Apostolic Nunciature.