Now that the Church has decided to go into business with three local mobile telephony providers, and install 43 antennas on its property, it might as well be taxed on the income it is generating from this enterprise. The Church is giving us a lot of bull to justify its decision to turn our places of worship into spaces for commercial use: mainly social justifications and assurances that these antennae are not a health hazard to us and that they do not
affect the aesthetics or the structural integrity of the buildings.
But who cares about all this! What we care about is that the Church is a
holy place and should not be used for commercial purposes. The Church can never convince us that its action is aimed at providing a social service, in that it is providing us with a better system of
communication. I am sorry but that the responsibility of the State and not of the Church.
The property manager of the Church is going to great lengths to convince the parishioners of Balzan that the installation of these mobile antennae are above board.
But what the Church is conveniently forgetting is that its role is not to
render a holy place such as our churches open to speculation. Making
these business arrangements with the three local mobile telephony
providers is not only desecrating the Church, but could also involve
pornography and poker programmes that can be aired on the cable and
telephony networks.
In 2006, an application to place phone mast on a UK church spire was
rejected over fears that pornography would be distributed via the
network. The Chelmsford Diocese Chancellor explained that: “It is wrong in law for the Church to facilitate transmission of pornography even in
a slight or modest way. It is equally wrong for the Church to gain
financial advantage even in a slight or modest way from the transmission of pornography.”
In Malta the Archbishop’s Curia does not insist on the inclusion of any conditions in the contracts it signed with the mobile telephony providers that no pornography or gambling will be transmitted via their network. The
Church cannot be taken seriously when in a statement issued by the local Archbishop and that of Gozo, it warned on the dangers of gambling, when the Church itself is an accomplice to the gambling programmes which are shown on cable television.
Nor is it correct for the church to refuse to give information on the
income that it is generating from these contracts. We all know that the
Church is exempt from tax but once it is now transforming it churches
from holy places to antennae bases, the income that is coming from
these business transactions must be taxed by the State.
It is a shame that our Curia is selling its soul for money. The money
given by our forefathers for the construction of these temples was for
the consecration of God, and not to accommodate the local mobile
telephony providers.
I admire Bishop Ennio Antonelli, general secretary of the Bishops’
Conference in Italy, who had the foresight five years ago to write to
his fellow bishops advising them to refuse requests to install antennae
on churches. Bishop Antonelli gives a number of reasons for his advice.
Canon 1220 of Church law stipulates that anything that could harm the
sanctity of a church building must be avoided. He adds that the presence
of the antennae could also be at odds with laws regulating relations
between the Italian state and the Catholic Church. Under Italian law, a building used for worship is exempt from tax, but this might not be the
case if the building became a source of revenue.
Bishop Antonelli adds that a sacred building is a “cultural asset”
which must be protected from anything that could compromise its
integrity, spoil its appearance or interfere with its principal function.
This is the crux of it all: is the Church in Malta harming the sanctity
of the church building when doing business with the telephony service providers?
I have no doubt that that is the case and I am very sad that the Church
has lost its soul at the sight of money.
It is true that the parishioners are more concerned about the health
issue, and it is also true that Malta not being proactive in that it is
relying on the World Health Organisation. Unlike other countries it
is taking no initiative to establish its own maximum levels of
electromagnetic waves that can come out of these antennae. Other
countries know that they cannot wait for the WHO to issue its
bible, and they have established their own rules.
The public pressure in countries such as Italy, Spain, Germany, Belgium and Italy made the government of those countries bow to popular sentiment and lowered the radiation exposure maximum rate to a level that operators claim is unworkable. Operators look at the business side and not at health issues; and the lower the rate of emission, the higher their expenses.
In Belgium the government has ruled that one antenna must not produce more than one quarter of the recommended exposure rate since four operators will be rolling out services nationwide. The Spain 3G operators are required to come to a mutual agreement to ensure the recommended rate is not topped where there are more than one antenna in close proximity. In Italy, the government ruled that a single antenna must restrict its radiation emission to within one sixth of the EU’s recommended rate. (The EU has no law on the maximum permissible levels of electromagnetic waves).
But the bottom line regarding our Archbishop’s Curia remains this: how can the Church allow the mobile antennae on sacred places such as our churches, without restricting the use of immoral websites on mobile phones and internet such as pornography and gambling? How can it not pay tax for the income it is generating from this business? How can it flout article 1220 of the Canon Code?
Moreover I invite the readers to look at a judgement of the European Court of Human Rights regarding these antennae given on 16 December 2008 in the names of Khurshid Mustafa and Tarzibachi v Sweden!
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The Church is giving us a lot of bull to justify its decision to turn our places of worship into spaces for commercial use: mainly social justifications and assurances that these antennae are not a health hazard to us and that they do not
