The influence of the Roman Catholic Church on midwifery practice in Malta.

Advances in scientific thought, including those in medicine, have greatly affected the whole of human life and continue to have a stupendous impact on it. Contemporary medicine bears a tremendous responsibility for the well-being of all humankind, one which is shared with other disciplines including religion. Throughout the centuries the Roman Catholic Church has provided strong guidance during times of moral disorientation. But its contribution in the fields of bioethics is likely to evoke an ambivalent reaction, since the ecclesiastical authorities often appear to repeat the same old moral principles, drawing the same old moral conclusions without engaging in convincing moral reasoning. The Roman Catholic Church believes that there is the need for a humble meeting of religion and modem science on current problems, while at the same time it sees itself as the guardian of God's Word from which it draws religious and moral principles without always having at hand the solution to particular problems. The conflicts created by the Church's teachings vis-'a-vis scientific advances and society's expectations have been strongly felt in a small traditionally Roman Catholic community like the Maltese Islands. These conflicts, particularly in issues related to reproduction, have throughout the centuries resulted in efforts by the ecclesiastical authorities in Malta to control medical matters. Only 93 km away from Sicily and 290 km from the northern coast of Africa, the Maltese group of islands occupies a central position in the Mediterranean, which made them an important meeting place for the various Mediterranean cultures. Christianity was brought to the islands by the apostles Paul and Luke in about 60 AD,I and the arrival of the Normans in 1127 AD resulted in a cultural and political connection with Sicily during the Middle Ages, which strengthened the Church's dominance. Its influence was further augmented when in 1530 the Emperor Charles V of Spain ceded the Maltese Islands to the Knights Hospitallers of St John of Jerusalem, who continued to rule until they were expelled by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1798. The traditionally Catholic matrix of the Maltese population allowed the strong authority of the Roman Catholic Church to persist even during the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth century when the Islands fell under the administration of Protestant England, and Anglican ecclesiastics repeatedly attempted to establish their influence on the colony.2 The Roman Catholic Church on the Maltese Islands set up institutions for social and charitable purposes such …