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Sexual Morality and Religious Belief Among LGBT and Cohabiting Catholics in Malta and Sicily

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Sexual Morality and Religious Belief Among LGBT and Cohabiting Catholics in Malta and Sicily Between faith and love? Sexual morality and religious belief among LGBT and cohabiting Catholics in Malta and Sicily University of Malta Library – Electronic Thesis & Dissertations (ETD) Repository The copyright of this thesis/dissertation belongs to the author. The author’s rights in respect of this work are as defined by the Copyright Act (Chapter 415) of the Laws of Malta or as modified by any successive legislation. Users may access this full-text thesis/dissertation and can make use of the information contained in accordance with the Copyright Act provided that the author must be properly acknowledged. Further distribution or reproduction in any format is prohibited without the prior permission of the copyright holder. Between faith and love? Sexual morality and religious belief among LGBT and cohabiting Catholics in Malta and Sicily A thesis presented for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, University of Malta Angele Deguara 2018 ii To the beautiful people of the LGBT community and to those who dare be themselves iii ABSTRACT My ethnographic study explores the role of religion in relation to intimate relationships in contemporary Maltese society and to a lesser extent in Palermo, Sicily. The study examines the intersection between faith and sexuality in a secularising society. It seeks to answer two main research questions: (i) whether and to what extent the Catholic Church and its teaching influence the lifestyles, decisions, beliefs and behaviours of individuals in intimate relationships; (ii) how Catholics who are in sexual relationships which do not conform to the moral guidelines of the Catholic Church, more specifically lesbian, gay, bisexual or trans (LGBT) and divorced or separated and cohabiting or remarried men and women experience conflict arising from the incongruence between their beliefs and their sexual desires or lifestyle choices. My ethnographic fieldwork consisted of two years of participant observation with Drachma LGBTI in Malta. I also spent a short time with members of Ali d’Aquila in Palermo. Both organisations offer a space where LGBT individuals may reconcile their sexuality and their spirituality. Most informants from Drachma and Ali d’Aquila are male, in their mid-thirties and well-educated. I also conducted forty- five in-depth, unstructured interviews with both LGBT and non-LGBT individuals whose lifestyle or sexuality does not conform to the official teaching of the Catholic Church on sexuality. Being brought up in a traditionally Catholic society means absorbing notions of what it means to be a ‘good’ Catholic such as being heterosexual, getting married in Church, not having sex outside marriage and having children. Therefore non- conformity to these expectations leads to various conflicts and struggles which may manifest themselves in a number of ways and on many levels. The official teaching of the Church on sexual morality is the main source of conflict not only with the Church itself but also with God, with significant others and with the wider moral community. iv The study reveals that LGBT and non-LGBT informants experience the conflict differently. Same-sex desires tend to shatter one’s inner state of being as one is engulfed with feelings of guilt, fear, disgust, anger, anxiety and disempowerment. Divorced or cohabiting Catholics may also experience guilt because of living ‘in sin’. However they are more tormented by shame rather than by guilt, as they experience a sense of judgement and exclusion from the social community. In contrast, LGBT informants are more concerned with the judging eyes of God. The past few decades have witnessed remarkable shifts in the way family life and intimacies are construed and experienced in contemporary society, not least in Malta. Contemporary believers are living their faith and their sexuality in very different social conditions than they did only a few decades ago. Secular developments have created an environment which makes it possible for individuals to challenge the dictates of prescriptive morality. As traditional sources of authority decline, individuals tend to reconstruct their faith and sexual morality. However, the study suggests that one cannot adopt the religious individualisation thesis unproblematically within the Maltese context. While informants no longer consider the Church to be their moral yardstick where their love lives are concerned, it is only a few who have relinquished their desire to be embraced by it. Their reconstructed sexual morality is still embedded within a Catholic framework even as they opt for contemporary lifestyles. Modern Catholic believers are reluctant to sever their ties completely from the Church, preferring instead to have remained within its fold. While nobody can deny that Malta has indeed become a more secular, modern society, and that relationship choices are less guided by Church morality, Malta’s modernity remains persistently Catholic. In Malta aspects of modernity converge with pre-modern elements. While the movement away from the Church may suggest a decline in religious authority, the fact that the legitimation of the sacred is still significant indicates that religion still plays an important role within contemporary Malta. v PREFACE This thesis is being submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Anthropological Sciences at the University of Malta. The work is original except where reference or acknowledgement is made to previous research and has not been presented for any other degree or qualification to any other university. The study was conducted under the supervision of Dr Jean-Paul Baldacchino, Head of the Department of Anthropological Sciences. My interest in studying secularisation through intimate relationships was spurred by the divorce legislation campaign in 2011 in which I was directly involved with the ‘yes’ movement. The role of the Roman Catholic Church in Malta had changed and I wanted to delve more into the subject. In the years preceding the research I was also active in promoting LGBT rights and I had broadened my circle of friends from the LGBT community. I hope that my work exploring the conflict arising from the incongruence between faith, love and sexuality will give a voice to the LGBT and divorced/separated persons who shared their experiences with me. I would perhaps be too optimistic to expect my work to bring about some kind of positive change in their life but I still hope it will. I would like to thank members of Drachma LGBTI in Malta and Ali d’Aquila in Palermo for opening their door and their hearts to me as well as all those who shared their story with me or who gave me their support throughout this research process. I particularly want to thank Mario Gerada for his constant support and feedback. I am grateful to my patient husband for taking on more than his share of domestic responsibilities so that I could work on my project. I thank the members of the Department of Anthropological Sciences for introducing me to the fascinating world of anthropology and for giving me the opportunity to broaden my knowledge and understanding of the social phenomena under investigation by exploring them from this perspective. I appreciate the encouragement, interest and advice of my co-supervisor and friend, Professor Dorota Hall from the Polish vi Academy of Sciences in Warsaw which she has given me from the start. Finally I thank my tutor, Dr Jean-Paul Baldacchino for the long hours he dedicated to this project. I value his friendship, his professionalism, the scholarly guidance and valuable insights he gave me especially during our long conversations which shaped this work. I owe this enjoyable learning experience mostly to him. Part of this work was presented in the following publication: ‘Destroying False Images of God: The Experiences of LGBT Catholics’, Journal of Homosexuality, vol. 65, no. 3, 2018, pp. 317-337. vii Table of Contents ABSTRACT .............................................................................................................................. iv PREFACE ................................................................................................................................ vi Chapter I: THE CONTEXT OF THE STUDY ................................................................................ 1 1.1 Overview of the study ............................................................................................ 1 1.2 The Church’s official position on homosexuality ................................................... 5 1.3 The Church’s official position on matrimony ......................................................... 8 1.4 Christianity in Malta’s History ................................................................................ 9 1.5 Social Change and Secularisation ......................................................................... 12 1.5.1. Church and State .......................................................................................... 12 1.5.2 Structural Differentiation ............................................................................. 18 1.5.3 Changes within the Church .......................................................................... 19 1.5.4 Shifts in the construction of intimate relationships and sexual morality .... 21 1.6 The evolution of LGBT emancipation and identities in Malta ............................. 28 1.7 The study of secularisation and intimate relationships ....................................... 35 Chapter II – STRUCTURING MY FIELD: STUDYING RELIGION
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