|
I am afraid that Anna Mallia still has Mintoff oozing out of her, and this can be seen in the way she chooses to denigrate the Bishops and attack Church Schools.
Being supposedly an intelligent woman, which I personally doubt, hearing her and reading her occasionally, Anna Mallia should know what the priest’s mission is all about, and these priests know themselves, through their years of formation and pastoral mission that: two wrongs never made the first one right; this means that if one is doing something wrong, it gives you no licence to do the same thing – it is still wrong. You do not retaliate and in so doing put the Church into disrepute; you have vowed obedience to your Bishops and to their successors, in whichever Diocese you are working – hence the need to continue doing so and be seen to be doing it, oblivious of what is taking place; the Church is your Mother, much more than for the lay people. So, don’t go hanging your mother’s dirty linen in public; you are a priest to all the flock: hence, in identifying yourself with one particular group is wrong. This is especially so in the case of Maltese politics! You cannot expect to be respected as a priest and as a minister of the Church if you keep on identifying yourself with one political group in Malta.
Anna Mallia claims that many Labourites were disgusted with the Bishops’ declaration. The Bishops have a right and are obliged to speak their minds whenever they wish and in whatever circumstance. There was a time when the Maltese people wished the Bishops to speak their minds, especially when times were hot and when there was hardly any democratic stability in the country, thanks to Mallia’s one-time champ – yet, the Bishops kept mum and I, for one, believed that they had every right to do so.
I dislike mentioning people by their names, but I assure Anna Mallia that some priests put their nose in the political arena long before having come over to the Maltese shores, I can assure her.
Mallia does not seem to be aware, at the moment, that more priests are blatantly showing their political inclinations to the so-called left-wing Party (are there any ‘wings’ left in Malta, I wonder!) than those doing the other thing, the other way. Heaven forbid if some priest started publicly showing his political leanings towards the Nationalist Party. It would be the Sixties coming back, no doubt! Have a read at L-Orizzont and I assure you that things couldn’t be clearer.
In the same article, Mallia claims that “priests and clergymen cannot be allowed to be instrumental in the political divide of the country.” But isn’t that self-contradiction, dear madam?
Anna Mallia takes the Maltese Bishops to task over their participating in Bishops’ European Conferences, as she describes them as “a very subtle form of propaganda.” Nothing could be further from the truth, and she knows that! Did she expect the Maltese Bishops to boycott such conferences, the same way she is expecting hardened Labourites to boycott the EP Elections? Or does she wish that her Dom was still around and in power, to prohibit the Bishops from leaving the country, the old, old way?
“The readers know of instances in church schools where children of Labourites are continuously being harassed because of their political beliefs.” Instances, Ms Mallia, are not the general thing, and your way of bringing in Church schools certainly show you for what you are.
I happen to be a teacher in a Church school and I can assure Anna Mallia that in the long years I have been teaching there, I have never ever come to know of any student who was in any way harassed, and especially for political leanings. And she has people around her who can vouch for this.
So, Anna Mallia finds that she is able to identify with the Church when she, the Church, takes the Nationalist Government to task…but not when the Church speaks otherwise! How’s that for proof of Mallia’s state of political firmness?
In conclusion, of one thing I find sympathy with what she writes. I have to admit, yes, that individuals do err. And her concluding words do make a little bit of sense. The Nationalist Party doe have a habit of de-christianising itself more than is deserved or prudent. To the point of making it ridiculous.
Franco Farrugia
Gwardamangia
|
