New Church regulations on feasts welcomed

New Church regulations on outdoor celebrations for religious feasts have been widely welcomed and described as timely to ensure that the situation, especially during band marches, did not get out of hand.

The regulations were announced this week by the Curia. The regulations are a sign of the church's determination to retain the traditional nature of local feasts but to ban excess in celebrations which portray the occasion as a pagan activity. In the past few years, the Curia has insisted on feasts being cancelled, rather than allowing them to be marred by strife within the parish.

Lawrence Farrugia, president of the Malta Band Clubs Association, which was involved in discussions with the church authorities on the regulations, said the rules were appropriate because they were based on the belief that the scope of feasts was not profane but religious.

Mr Farrugia, who is also president of the St Lawrence Band Club of Vittoriosa, said the action was timely and would stop any further degeneration of situations which would ultimately prejudice the very future of feasts.

"The association is satisfied with the outcome of the discussions and the regulations," he said.

Mr Farrugia acknowledged that the regulations would mean that band clubs would have to shoulder greater responsibility. But he said he was convinced that club officials were responsible persons who wanted feasts to be celebrated in the proper manner.

In a questionnaire, the majority of band clubs were against a church proposal to reduce the number of days of feast celebrations by two days. The association's request for there to be eight days was accepted, he said.

The regulations on the celebration of feasts in towns and villages include a ban on discos in public places and street parties. They will come into effect on January 1.

The announcement came with a stiff warning that breach of the regulations would lead to the cancellation of feasts or other sanctions.

The basic points of the new regulations are that none of the societies should submit applications for new external activities; musical programmes and band marches can only be held during eight days; marches containing objectionable singing are prohibited; statues of the titular saints should not be carried during marches; band marches cannot be held during the main religious functions; the main march should not last longer than four hours; and while accompanying the statue on the feast day, the band should play religious hymns or marches which are suitable for the occasion.

A board, made up of two representatives each from the church and the Band Clubs Association, is being set up to investigate allegations of breaches.

Mr Farrugia said the two MBCA members representing the association on the feast monitoring committee would be appointed during the first meeting of the executive council being held in the near future.

Tonio Portughese, president of the Sliema Philharmonic Society, said he felt that some form of regulation was needed because on certain occasions things tended to go out of hand.

Certain practices introduced to feasts in recent years were not part of tradition. The regulations would ensure that standards were maintained, he said.

The regulations would ensure feasts were celebrated in a serious way - as their religious nature called for - but they would still remain attractive.

Effectively, some of the regulations separate the religious and the profane celebrations so that they would not interfere with each other.

Mr Portughese sees the regulations as a serious attempt by the church to see where things were getting out of hand and to put things into the proper perspective. He gave example was of various practices which should stop, such as music with offensive lyrics about rival band clubs and obscenities uttered by supporters during the band marches.

Mr Portughese said participants in band marches and certain clubs would now have to exercise self-discipline. Clubs also had to educate supporters to behave because misbehaviour would have repercussions.

Mro Dione Buhagiar, director of the brass band of Siggiewi and Maestro di Cappella of St John's Co-Cathedral, said it was the responsibility of the church to draw up regulations which were suited to present times. The church had a responsibility to provide guidelines.

"Everything boils down to the fact that these associations and clubs are participating in feasts whose nature is religious, having been organised by the church. Therefore, once the feast is mainly a religious celebration, those taking part have to respect its religious nature," he said.

After all, the participation of the various clubs and societies was intended to embellish the feast and not to interfere with the solemnity of the occasion, he added.

"To celebrate a religious feast in a pagan way does not make sense," he said.

Mro Buhagiar said the introduction of discos during the feast did not make sense either. The idea behind the organisation of these discos was to try to attract youths to the feast but discos jarred with the religious aspect of feasts.

"It is difficult to match a disco with a religious celebration which is meant to foster meditation on the saint whose feast is being celebrated," he said.

The proposals for the regulations presented to the church authorities by the College of Parish Priests targeted mainly band marches and are aimed to make church functions and external celebrations more complementary.

In recent years, insistence by a private organiser to organise a disco during the feast at San Gwann, trouble between two clubs in Kalkara and efforts to introduce another band in the feast at Paola, had led to the cancellation of the external celebrations in these localities.