Is eternal damnation on its way anyway?

By next Sunday the argy-bargy will be over, or will it? What exactly will the outcome of the divorce referendum on Saturday lead to? Will it lead to bedlam, as the anti brigade is predicting, and damnation that some within the Church are forewarning?

I say some, because the Church is being cagey and playing a very duplicitous game about the whole shebang. While some are putting up highly controversial billboards and promising exclusion for those who vote “for divorce”, others are being more diplomatic excluding themselves from criticism directed at the extremists while not openly distancing themselves from the fracas.

The line Archbishop Paul Cremona took last Sunday, at an event animated by anti-divorce campaigners DJ Pierre Cordina and his wife Mireille at Ta’ Qali celebrating World Family Day, was non confrontational, even romantic (as in imaginary) and very different to Gozo bishop, Mario Grech’s stance. He likened marriage to a “vocation” and that difficulties could be overcome and become “moments of joy and satisfaction” if the couple accepted to carry their “crosses”.

I will be very surprised if the “Yes to divorce” wins the day on Saturday. Because despite the Archbishops’ subtler message of accepting sufferance, there has been so much fire and brimstone bandied about that it is bound to affect the weak minded and the superstitious.

That is not to say that all who will vote “No” are weak minded. But one cannot dispute that there is still a large number of intellectually unsophisticated people around and that includes the ‘educated’ classes.

One only has to see what programmes on TV are the most watched to understand why the majority of the population’s thinking is stymied rather than being stimulated.

Listening to the arguments and name calling being presented from both sides I am either shocked, amused or simply astounded at some of the banalities presented as ‘evidence’, the latter mainly from the “No” camp.

The most outrageous being Dr Anna Vella’s “Marriage with divorce will stay valid until the woman’s size grows beyond 10”. A real own goal because it depicts marriage as shallow and based on the woman’s waistline rather than a union based on love and respect.

But it still might resonate with women who are scared their husbands will abandon them for slimmer women once divorce is introduced. As though those kind of men do not abandon them anyway, with or without divorce.

The “Yes” proponents have been at a disadvantage from the word go. They have had to contend with the opposition’s use of God and Jesus as a marketing tool.

Besides the billboards, flyers have been delivered to individual letterboxes saying, “Kristu Iva, Divorzu Le”, (Christ Yes, Divorce No) with among other messages about love stating “L-imhabba kollox tissaporti”(Love tolerates everything).

But surely if divorce is being considered it means that ‘love’ has flown out of the window.
The “Yes” lobby have also used “love” in their flyers - “Give love a second chance” - distributed door to door.
Despite both camps using “love” in their flyers we have seen too much of the opposite in this highly unsavoury debate, from which the large majority of politicians have been running scared.

Not to mention the threats and confusion emanating from various priests. Some saying “you will commit a sin if you vote ‘Yes’”, while others are saying that it is not.

I was handed yet another flyer, the other day, with the title “Tivvota ‘Iva’ Mhux Dnub?” (Is Voting ‘Yes’ Not a Sin?) It informs of a public meeting organised by “Kattolici ‘Iva’ Ghax Dritt” (Catholics ‘Yes’ because it is a human right) at the Msida local council offices in Msida at 6.45, on Monday at which former parish priest in Palermo and now the director of a Catholic journal Adista, Giovanni Avena is to be the main speaker,

Then we had Bishop Grech, adding to his previous apportioning of “guilt” as “divorce is intrinsically bad”, the claim that anyone voting for divorce could not receive Holy Communion. Although he is now saying he was misquoted on the latter. So was last Sunday’s Times report inaccurate?

Unfortunately, though the “For Divorce” lobby have retaliated by using alternative ‘shock’ promotion tactics. For example, the use of the word “bastards” in their billboard “We’re forced to cohabit: Are our children bastards?” was crass, insensitive and offensive and perpetuated name calling.

Of course the term is correct, but we don’t go around using words, which are distasteful or disparaging just because they are in the dictionary. I took exception to some of the comments online that tried to excuse the use of the word.

“Would the term born out of wedlock sound any sweeter to these nitpickers? We all know what message the billboard intended to pass on and it was not meant to be an insult,” said one.

My response to that comment is that it is offensive to publicise name-calling and anyone with a modicum of sensibility should realise that it would be seen as insulting.

Another opined “That this billboard offends is understandable, but sometimes the truth is brutal.”
Is brutality really a ploy people should be using to garner votes? I don’t think so.

And the most insensitive comment to my mind was the following: “Anyone can take as much offence as they may wish, but it is the legal definition of bastard”

We also had a pro divorce lobbyist, Marlene Mizzi who likened the anti divorce lobby to the Nazi Party and on the other side more recently, we had the Gozo bishop Mario Grech talking about “traitors who used every means to kill the flock”.

So much for love, lets all just offend and insult each other as much as possible as long as we get what we want in the end. Is this what we call debate?

And there is no room for neutrality, “We should show what we believe in by voting”, which of course he means “No to divorce”, Bishop Grech told a packed hall in the Fgura parish hall on Friday evening, previewing the bishop’s pastoral letter that was to be published yesterday.

But all these power struggles might have been a huge waste of time if Harold Camping, the founder of Family Radio a non-profit Christian radio network based in Oakland, California is right in his prophesy.

We are all going to perish soon anyway. He is claiming on billboards, which have popped up all over America, that a massive earthquake will mark the second Judgment Day on Saturday, May 21, yesterday, ushering in a five-month period of catastrophes before the world comes to a complete end in October. When the good will rise to heaven and the bad left to fester.

So is it really worth voting on Saturday. I suppose if you believe Camping you should not only vote, but also vote “No” or else it’s eternal damnation!