Now that the visit of His Holiness is over let us augur that the country and the Church do not go back into hibernation.
We have all witnessed the vigour within which the Church and State have worked to make the Pope’s visit a success. The country was given a facelift in the places and roads scheduled to be seen by the Pope, and even the Luqa monument was hidden behind a banner for the Pope not to see lest he be scandalized. As if it is OK for the Pope not to see it, but not for our people and particularly our children.
Even the Church woke up from its slumber and involved as many laypersons as possible to help her in the organisation of the visit. It was a relief and joy to see the enthusiasm of our youths and old alike working together with the Church and State to make the Pope’s stay in Malta one to remember. And let us admit that they succeeded because even if we tend to criticise the Church every now and then (and this is something people do out of love and not out of spite), the Pope’s visit has rekindled in us the sense of belonging that we have in the Church and in this country.
The Pope seemed to have enjoyed this too and whereas on Sunday morning when he passed from Hamrun on his way to Floriana he was half asleep, his energy came back during the celebrations that followed. Needless to say, the focus of the visit from that celebrating St Paul shifted towards the meeting which the Pope had with the victims of St Joseph’s home which I am sure that St Paul blessed and approved.
As Lawrence Grech, one of the victims and the spokesperson for all the victims stated, he was struck by the humbleness of the Pope and the Pope in his doing has sent the world the message that the Church condemns in actions and not only in words sexual abuses and that it will no longer keep these abuses within its confines.
We all know that during the reigns of the other Popes such allegations where investigated by the Church, prosecuted by the Church and judged by the Church; but now, thanks to Pope Benedict, the Vatican has changed its course and it announced that such abuses are to be reported to the Police for the Police to take action. There is no doubt that this will be always remembered as the hallmark of the reign of Pope Benedict: that sexual abusers are not tolerated by the Church.
It is a mistake for some of the parents to assume that all priests are child molesters or sex offenders. I have witnessed this myself when parents are refusing to send their children as altar boys or in youth clubs managed by priests for fear that their children be molested. This is surely not the case and the visit of the Pope was the start of the healing process that the Church has started with its people and the start of the process of regaining the trust that the people had in its clergymen.
This is why both the Church and State cannot go back into hibernation once the Pope ended his visit. We now expect the State to continue in its maintenance project which it started before the visit and to ensure that the works that were done continue to be monitored so that maintenance will be regular and not caused by any State visit.
I cannot understand how in the IT era, the people responsible do not make sure that their computers send them constant reminders of what needs to be done, or maintained. Before IT started, we had a system of BU’s (Bring ups) in the government departments where I worked for more than twenty years, reminding us of what needs to be followed.
But it seems there is no such system that in the Works and other departments as otherwise how can you explain that in my 50 years it was only now that I saw people painting the Bombi tunnel for the very first time? This facelift and the regular maintenance make the taxpayers happy in that it is the actual manifestation of how their money is being spent. This is regarding the material aspect but then there is the spiritual aspect of the Pope’s visit which the Church cannot ignore.
It is also the responsibility of the Church not to go back to hibernation but to continue with the same enthusiasm it has shown to the Pope during his visit. The involvement of the lay persons must continue because the Church must admit that its only way forward is to involve the people more taking into consideration that the number of clergymen is decreasing and most of them choose to work as part timers in their vocation.
The words of the Pope were clear: work for marriages to stay forever and the Church must follow in the footsteps of Pope Benedict when by example he met the victims of abuse. The Church must now act so as to help marriages survive and not just preach the indissolubility of marriage. It is sad to note that the measures the Church takes for such a task are still those initiated in the 1960s by Mgr Charles Vella when he set up the Cana movement. Since than the Church has done nothing more than bless the work of Cana.
People want the Church to go to them just as the Pope went to the victims of abuse. People want more enthusiasm from the Church, the same enthusiasm it showed during the Pope’s visit to Malta. They want our Church to speak out on their behalf on the problems they are facing in keeping the family and the marriage together and how it should interfere with the state in the measures it takes, legal or administrative, which put pressures on the family and on the marriage.
Legalising co-habitation as a measure of solving the divorce issue is one of them and it will be a mistake for the Church to set its conscience at peace when this becomes law because the teachings of the Church are not only against divorce but also against co-habitation.
One last note. I found the speeches by the President of the Republic to be too religious and as Head of a State which has freedom of religion enshrined in its Constitution, the reference to Bible and the Gospel were out of context, or perhaps too much. I augur that in the future such speeches will also reflect the distinction between State and Church.
But when all is said and done, we needed the visit by Pope Benefict to Malta for various reasons: for the State to remember that maintenance of this country is to be done regularly, and for the Church, to remember that actions are louder than words.
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