The Vatican has just published a revised rule book which is intended to assist the Church in dealing with priests who molest children and mentally disabled persons as well as priests who use child pornography. The new rules, however, fall short of imposing an obligation on bishops to report offenders to the police and do nothing to counter the cover-ups which are often a local parish’s knee-jerk reaction when a new case comes to light.

Defending the new rule book’s evident shortcomings, Malta’s very own Monsignor Charles Scicluna told reporters that “If civil law requires you report, you must obey civil law; it’s not for canonical legislation to get itself involved with civil law.” Now many would say that the Church is under a moral (if not legal) obligation to bring evidence of a crime to the attention of the police. Whether the criminal priest is then defrocked is of subordinate importance. Quite frankly, I couldn’t care less whether the Church still continues to call the convicted child molester one of its own, as long as the predator is safely behind bars and on a sex-offenders list.

Put into the context of the newly-revived divorce debate in Malta, I find Mons. Scicluna’s comment to be truly revealing. It is not for canonical legislation to get itself involved with civil law. Indeed. But the Church insists on imposing its rules and dogma on a society which struggles with real problems on a daily basis and which is largely unimpressed by the Church’s claimed ability to prevent or solve these very real problems. Couples faced with irreconcilable marital differences may privately pray that their problems go away but most finally take the sensible decision to seek advice on how civil law can lead them out of their misery. If canonical laws were not intended to substitute the civil laws of a secular state where child molesting priests are concerned, neither should they come into play to justify the denial of a basic civil right that is divorce.