In a sweeping remark on the debate on assisted procreation and embryo freezing, Archbishop Paul Cremona yesterday raised concerns about abandoned children, “who are already born and living among us”.

Delivering the closing speech at a Church seminar to mark the 27th anniversary of the Vatican’s family rights charter, Mgr Cremona urged society to return to basics.

“We are speaking of assisted procreation and frozen embryos but what about children who are born and living among us and who are being abandoned by their parents,” Mgr Cremona asked.

He said the Church and Christians had a commitment to speak to the rest of society about the values of a stable marriage, urging lawmakers to also discuss ways and means to support families.

The seminar organised by the Church’s Family Commission had a daring twist midway when a shocked audience, including the Archbishop, heard a woman say prostitutes saved marriages and prevented them from breaking up.

A separated woman, angry for having been given advice by councillors to get married when she got pregnant more than 20 years ago, challenged those present not to judge cohabiting couples.

She spoke of her pain when people, including priests, passed disparaging comments about separated individuals. In a very emotional tone she urged people not to pass judgment, adding that even prostitutes had a function in society because they prevented marriages from breaking up when there were sexual problems in the couple.

At this point, some people in the stunned audience told her she was out of line after which the woman returned to her seat. She continued following the debate till the end.

The seminar was addressed by theologian Fr Renè Camilleri, who said the charter was not the remedy for the problems afflicting the family today.

“While the charter is valid, it only addresses marriage and family as an institution and so is not the remedy for today’s concerns,” he said.

“Marriage today depends on the commitment of individuals rather than obligations derived from the cultural and traditional mores imposed on the union as was in the past,” Fr Camilleri said, warning of an “epochal change” where lawmakers were dismantling the family unit and giving primacy to the individual.

Fr Camilleri said that, in the prevailing culture of rights, self sufficiency and individualism, tolerance was becoming “an absolute truth”.

While insisting that the rights of minorities had to be respected and upheld, Fr Camilleri cautioned against a society that made minority rights a tenet of faith.

Individual freedom, he added, is being construed as freedom from morality and this is creating a spiritual void.

“We cannot restore the family to what it was 100 or 50 years ago and nobody is advocating that it should be so. But Christianity has evolved in the past and it is still possible to evolve and provide answers to today’s society. Faith was the answer to this spiritual crisis,” Fr Camilleri said. His answer may not have been enough though for some of the audience members.

One man insisted that Christian families with numerous children existed and had to be seen at the forefront to serve as a model for society. Another man asked why the Church was scared of talking about sin when addressing the divorce issue.

Lingering was the argument of what position the Church should take in the debate on divorce.

Fr Camilleri said talk about sin was not the appropriate reaction for a Church that wanted to address all of society because it believed in the principle that a stable marriage and family were beneficial to civilisation.

Vatican charter on family rights

The charter drawn up in October 1983 depicts a very traditional model of the family based on marriage between a man and a woman in a society where non-married couples “must not be placed on the same level” by the state.

Spouses have a right to set up a family and decide on the spacing of births and the number of children to be born in accordance to “objective moral order, which excludes recourse to contraception, sterilisation and abortion”.

The charter says that human life must be “respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception”, insisting that respect for the dignity of the human being “excludes all experimental manipulation or exploitation of the human embryo”.

It also speaks of parents’ right to ensure children are not compelled to attend classes not in agreement with their own moral and religious convictions, mentioning in particular sex education, which the charter says must always be carried out under the close supervision of parents.

The charter promotes a family where the mother is encouraged to stay at home and speaks on the importance of a “family wage” so that mothers will not be obliged to seek employment outside the home.

Divorce attacks the very institution of marriage and the family, the charter says.