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maltatoday, WEDNESDAY, 23 APRIL 2014 3 AUXILIARY Bishop Charles Sci- cluna says Malta is becoming a "more pluralist society" since leg- islating for civil unions, gay adop- tions and before that, divorce. Speaking to Reporter, presented by MaltaToday managing editor Saviour Balzan, Scicluna said the bishops' rather muted statement on MPs legislating for civil union ref lected a "cautious, respectful" position adopted by the Maltese Catholic archdiocese. "I hope it stays this way. As pro- tagonists of the way the church 's doctrine is preached, us bishops must be aware of the new genera- tion. If we look back to Michael Gonzi, he was part of a clerical gen- eration that was active in politics," Scicluna said of the archbishop who locked horns with the Labour Party in the 1960s when he issued an interdiction of Labour executive committee members over fears of a communist inf luence on the party. "This has changed since Inde- pendence, and I think it's a good development: there is a distinction between political and religious leadership," Scicluna said. "But this doesn't mean a total separation, because conscience should be informed not only by re- ligious motivations, but by human reason. I think it is a development that us bishops are respecting the autonomy of Church and State." Scicluna previously said that Catholic MPs who support the civil unions legislation that gave same- sex couples the right to adopt, would be committing "a gravely immoral act", in comments to the Italian episcopal conference's newspaper Av venire. He had said that Catholic lawmakers had the "moral duty" to vote against the bill. After government MPs voted in favour of the bill earlier last week, while the Opposition abstained over its opposition to gay adop- tions, the Maltese bishops called on the government to ensure that opposite-sex families are "strength- ened ", in a statement issued two days after the introduction of civil unions for both same-sex and op- posite-sex couples. "Although the Creator's vision of marriage and sexuality is differ- ent from the one presented in this law, the Christian community is still duty-bound to show pastoral love towards each person, whoever they may be, and that the doors of the Church remain open to who- ever sincerely seeks the Lord," the church said. Speaking to Reporter, Scicluna said that the Maltese had received no sort of guidelines from the Vati- can over how to deal with the is- sue. "But Pope Francis's vision is clear," Scicluna said. "One of the beautiful things he said in Evan- gelii Gaudium, is that the beauty of the gospel is the redemption the Lord gives us through His love for man, in the death and resurrection of His son. Something that struck me is his statement that we are not the 'church of the sacristy', but a church must be out there and en- ter in a dialogue, respectfully but also in a clear way, with the world of today." Scicluna, who spent a great part of his career working with former pontiff and cardinal Joseph Ratz- inger in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, pointed out that Malta was no longer the insu- lar, island society it was before. "We have developed into a more pluralist society. What preoccu- pies me is the dictatorship of moral relativism, where every idea is given the same weighting… we all have different principles, but we must dialogue on a level where we can speak a language everyone can understand, that of human reason, dignity and the common good." News Bishop: Malta witnessing 'development of pluralist society' Download the MaltaToday App now