Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/219723
17 News maltatoday, SUNDAY, 1 DECEMBER 2013 Bishop Charles Scicluna and Archbishop Paul Cremona: the questions they must answer are many Pope asks, 'should we make marriage annulment simpler?' The Vatican sends out bishops a questionnaire on civil unions, children in 'irregular marriages', and what parishioners think about contraception MATTHEW VELLA WHAT do Catholics really think about their religion's teachings? It's a simple question that needs answering by the groundbreaking papacy that Francis has heralded, and he has now asked all his bishops to report back to the Vatican with some clear answers. By January 2014, bishops and their parish priests must answer various hot-potato questions about whether their parishioners actually practice the teachings of their Catholic faith, and even estimate how many separated couples and divorcees are in their countries, how many children are born out of wedlock, and how they are dealing with the reality of civil unions. The Vatican's Synod of Bishops is expected to discuss the so called 'pastoral challenges to the family' first at an extraordinary assembly of the Synod in 2014, and then again in 2015 on the 50th anniversary of the Synod's existence. It's a gathering of roughly 300 bishops, leaders of religious orders and other notables to advise the pope. Their concern is clear: Catholic families have changed and in the past 50 years have moved beyond the principles laid down in papal encyclicals like Paul VI's Humanae Vitae, which reaffirmed the traditional Catholic teaching on birth control and abortion. But perhaps the most interesting question the Vatican wants answered is whether simplifying the dreaded annulment proceedings in Catholic marriages, can make people's lives simpler. The tortuous process in dissolving Catholic marriages inside the ecclesiastical tribunals was one of the main arguments why Malta voted for a divorce law in a referendum 2010. Now Prime Minister Joseph Muscat has told the Vatican he will remove the supremacy its ecclesiastical tribunals enjoy over the civil courts: the abhorrent 1992 agreement forged by prime minister Eddie Fenech Adami with the Vatican, meant that separation proceedings in a civil court could be forced into abeyance, when either spouse opened annulment proceedings in the ecclesiastical tribunal. Once the tribunal reaches a decision on whether to annul the marriage or not, the civil court would have to accept the decision. "Could a simplification of canonical practice in recognising a declaration of nullity of the marriage bond provide a positive contribution to solving the problems of the persons involved? If yes, what form would it take?" the Vatican asks its bishops. "Among other things, it's possible that participants in the synod may press for revisions to the annulment process intended to make it less cumbersome and arduous – justified, perhaps, as part of outreach to what the synod document refers to as 'wounded persons'," writes John L. Allen, Vatican correspondent for the National Catholic Reporter. "In general, the thrust of the questions is not to ask people for their views on the content of church teaching, but rather how it can be better presented and how best bring it down to the retail level." The Vatican also wants to know the estimated proportion of children born and raised in "irregular marriages" (read: civil marriages) and whether they are provided with a Christian education. This concern was a primary one even during Benedict XVI's papacy, when in a homily the pontiff said that people in an "irregular marital situation" who were unable to receive Holy Communion, were not outside the Church. The Catholic Church say people not married in the Catholic rite or divorced, or living outside marriage with a partner, cannot received sacramental Communion. The Vatican also asks bishops to approximate a percentage of cohabiting couples, whether their parishes have a large number of separated and divorced couples. The Pope has mulled the possibility of examining the Orthodox practice of blessing a second marriage under certain circumstances. The document passed on to bishops also asks whether Christians actually know the teachings of Humanae Vitae and whether they are "aware of how morally to evaluate the different methods of family planning" – in a nutshell, whether contraceptive use is a common reality over natural birth control. "Is this moral teaching accepted… what natural methods are promoted by the particular Church… what differences are seen between the Church's teaching and civic education… how can an increase in births be promoted?" In another section, the Vatican asks about forthcoming laws recognising civil unions for gay couples and what the local church's attitudes towards them is, and how they can transmit the faith to children of same-sex parents.