Bishop Bashing In Malta (Contribution)

I must confess that I did not like the criticism, by so-called outspoken opinion makers, that accompanied the exit of former Archbishop of Malta Mgr. Mercieca.

As Archbishop, especially in his final years, I did not agree with some of the views expressed by Mgr. Mercieca, few as these publicly-expressed views have been.

I also did not agree with the way that, true to his image of a wily Gozitan, Mgr. Mercieca hedged on interviewers' questions on delicate issues which touched on the suffering of many Catholics in Malta, again, few as these interviewers questions have been.

The former Archbishop was a Curia man, preferring the precincts of the Curia to the world outside. The Curia is a peaceful place. The world outside is full of turmoil.

That having been said, I did not write my appreciation of his conduct as the conservative Archbishop of my church that I saw, not even when he dropped the resounding clanger that women should stay at home to look after their families and not go out to work.

Since the announcement that he had submitted his resignation to his Holiness the Pope, I have felt that if I did not have the will or indeed the gumption to call a spade a spade when he was in full command of the Catholic Church in Malta, I certainly did not have any right to comment on his Archbishopric when the man was on his way out.

I still consider that the negative comments directed at Archbishop Mercieca at a time when he was about to hand over to his successor were infra-dig and, in some ways, below the belt.

I may be turning into a pessimist late in my life.

The enthusiasm that accompanied the new Archbishop, His Grace Mgr. Pawl Cremona wherever he went, from the moment of the announcement of his appointment to several days after the live broadcast from St John's Co- Cathedral which had the Maltese and Gozitans glued to their television sets, almost had the makings of an accident waiting to happen.

That perennial smile on Archbishop Cremona's face, the public furore, the thirst for his word from young and old alike, his foray into Paceville, which, but for some palms, would have made his entrance akin to the other entrance that happened 2000 years ago, his mixing with young musicians, churchgoers and not, the room in his heart for those who have estranged themselves for different reasons must have irked Church haters, of which Malta has always had a few hibernating species, non-believers, and self-styled modernists who are for a way of life that is considered alien to that of the majority of Maltese and Gozitans.

I have been saying to myself for days that it will be just a matter of time before the dark side of Malta would no longer be able to suffer the spreading of the good word in such an effusive and appealing manner and would sprout somewhere to face the new Archbishop, to contradict him about the Church and the way it performed in the face of those developments in the so-called modern society that now permeate most of Europe.

Divorce would not be permitted to keep its head down, nor, I felt, same sex marriages, coppie di fatto, that we hear about everyday on our TV news bulletins and debates from Italy, marriages between homosexual males that are now permitted in Catholic Spain and, as we saw recently in a promo for Xarabank, also tolerated in Malta.

These and other issues, in my subjective opinion, is where values have taken a severe dumping under the guise of modern living and are therefore the issues that flag bearing "modernists" will want to embarrass the new, popular Archbishop with. They did. It is a shame that the University had to provide the forum for such unashamed Bishop bashing by some who would have kept their mouth shut had they understood how far removed their deep rooted feelings are from those of the majority of Maltese.

Proclaiming oneself to be a practicing homosexual to the Archbishop could not have shocked Mgr. Cremona as much as it disgusted those who read the report of what went on there. A meeting that was supposed to welcome the new Archbishop to Malta's centre of higher learning was turned into an attack on Catholic values as professed by the Church and by hundreds of thousands of Maltese. To declare oneself as an agnostic to the Archbishop is no act of heroism.

Exclusion by the Church of persons who practice a way of life that today is accepted in most countries and which the Catholic Church still doesn't accept is definitely a subject for rational, profound and constant discussion but, attacking the new Archbishop with anything and everything of which we do not approve in the Church's attitudes and approaches is certainly not the way.

In my view we are fortunate to have an Archbishop who does express himself.

We have an Archbishop who will not lock himself up inside the Curia to listen only to his cronies.

We have an outgoing man of God who said he wants to feel the pain that other Catholics, whose lives do not fit into the common mould, but who still want to live as good Catholics, are experiencing.

When Patri Pawl was chosen as the one, the Holy Ghost did not descend upon him as the Holy Ghost did on the Apostles and made him omniscient.

With this man of God we need to talk, to discuss, to see how daily lives can be made better, how we can all get closer to each other and to God.

For each one of us, that alone, could be the task of an entire lifetime.

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