In his latest contributions in the Times of Malta (May 6 and 27) , Martin Scicluna contends that the fundamental principle that should conduct any debate on abortion should be the supremacy of freedom of conscience.

It is ironic how Scicluna quotes from the Church’s doctrine to prove the supremacy of conscience and then holds that one is not bound to follow the Church’s teachings!

We all agree that one’s conscience is supreme and that no one has the right to coerce how one should act in decisions related to one’s conscience. But we all are aware that we are not the authors of our own life and that we don’t live in isolation as sole individuals.

Besides the principle of the supremacy of conscience, the Church also speaks about the common good. When referring to freedom, the social doctrine of the Church states that “the fullness of freedom consists in the capacity to be in possession of oneself in view of the genuine good, within the context of the universal common good” and “the good of human beings cannot be attained independently of the common good of the community to which they belong”.

Scicluna states that the right to abortion is based on the “intrinsic right possessed by all women to exercise properly informed choice when it comes to what they may or may not do with their bodies in pregnancy”.

What Scicluna fails to state is that even if women have, what he calls, an intrinsic right to decide what they may or may not do with their bodies, they don’t have any right to decide what to do with the life of another individual.

Supremacy of conscience does not give one the licence to act as one feels without any guiding principle. The Church teaches that “conscience expresses itself in acts of ‘judgement’ which reflect the truth about the good; and not in arbitrary ‘decisions’.”

Supremacy of conscience does not give one the licence to act as one feels- Ray Azzopardi

The Church goes on to affirm that “the maturity and responsibility of these judgements are not measured by the liberation of the conscience from objective truth, in favour of an alleged autocracy in personal decisions, but, on the contrary, by an insistent search for truth and by allowing oneself to be guided by that truth in one’s action”.

By emphasising the right of a pregnant woman to do what she thinks best with her body without any reference to the living being she is carrying within her is distorting reality and absconding the truth. 

Scicluna, to prove his point, states: “The Catholic Church teaches that abortion is morally wrong. But the majority of Catholics in the developed world – who are educated, emancipated and enlightened – still exercise their own choice on the matter”.

His reasoning is that since a great majority of Catholics do not follow the teachings of the Church on the question of abortion, they are in the right and the Church is wrong. Sciclunas’s ‘enlightened’ reasoning!

Not only does Scicluna want the Church to remain out of the debate on abortion but he also contends that rationality should not be tinted with religious influence.

He subtly states that there shouldn’t be anyone “invoking cultural doctrines that threatens rationality”. So our religious convictions become ‘cultural doctrines’!

Because we live in a ‘liberal, pluralistic’ society, the only guideline should be rationality! In fact, in his last contribution Scicluna concludes his article with the words “Have the courage to use your reason”.

But Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI reasons otherwise. When addressing politicians in Westminster Hall (2010), Benedict specifically dealt with the need of spiritual enlightenment, especially in a pluralist democracy.

He asks: “By appeal to what authority can moral dilemmas be resolved? If the moral principles underpinning the democratic process are themselves determined by nothing more solid than social consensus, then the fragility of the process becomes all too evident – herein lies the challenge for democracy”.

Benedict goes on to emphasise that the role of religion in political debate is “to help purify and shed light upon the application of reason to the discovery of objective moral principles”. 

“The world of reason and the world of faith – the world of secular rationality and the world of religious belief,” the Pontiff affirms, “need one another and should not be afraid to enter into a profound and ongoing dialogue, for the good of our civilisation”.

The state cannot on its own, claim completely for itself, the justification of morality, Ratzinger stated in his Essay ‘Theology and the Church’s Political Stance’ when he was still a cardinal.

It is only when Church and state cooperate and consult one another, especially when dealing with moral and ethical issues, that our society would be more just and human.

Because we are limited creatures and because our conscience needs to be formed and guided by moral principles we need to consult the Social Doctrine of the Church. Living in a secular and pluralistic society in no way means that our society should be divested of moral and ethical principles.