Hope renewed

Christianity is peculiarly the religion of social justice. Christ scandalised his peers by keeping company with the poor, with sinners and social outcasts. It still is so. Despite the overwhelming, and possibly alienating, panoply of Catholicism in Malta, hundreds, perhaps thousands, of priests and religious persons dedicate their lives to the service of the downtrodden. It is part of our social landscape and we tend to take it for granted just as we do with our natural heritage.

Although government agencies are taking over much of the social assistance, once the complete monopoly of the Church, many of those who have acknowledged their vocation to serve Christ continue to serve their fellows day by day as a profession also. Schools, hospitals and a variety of other institutions benefit from this service often given by people who have taken vows of poverty. They never go on strike, never worry about long working hours and have never been known to ask for a raise. I have no idea what their influence is within the Church itself and doubt that they seek to have it. They serve and serve and seek neither, power, wealth nor fame. They are also virtually invisible.

Still they are a social reality which must be acknowledged. Although their service is prayer, it is unquestionably also a social service and often one that becomes indispensable in economic terms also. They are an objective reality which should be acknowledged regardless of one's religion or lack of it.

The bulk of this contribution is made to address human suffering of one kind of another whether assisting persons with disabilities, the aged, the sick, drug addicts or ex-prisoners. It is as it should be with ever greater professional skills being acquired by the principal actors and the volunteers they gather around them.

What is a relatively new development is the interest being shown by priests and religious persons in environmental matters. They have come to the field only of late but they are catching up fast. They are making the connections between the environment and society much faster than many others. They are quick to realise that resistance to unsustainable development is not a matter of safeguarding an isolated interest in botany or ornithology but a question of justice, social justice.

The aborted educational walk at Ta' Cenc last Saturday benefited by the presence of at least one priest and one monk, neither of whom could be accused of being a naïve tree-hugger. One is a Jesuit and the other a missionary in Peru. Both were vocal and active in denouncing the obstruction made to the signposted path to the neolithic remains present on site and to the educational activity organised by the Ceratonia Foundation and the AD Gozo regional committee.

Participants had arrived for a family outing with their children and babes in arms to be met by a detachment of about 15 policemen guarding a gate erected without a Mepa permit. People, ordinary people, had been denied access to their national heritage and it was well that priests and religious were there to support them. Such actions are also a symbolic defence of future generations, the completely vulnerable. It comes as no surprise that such persons are alive to the ethical connotations.

Nor was this the first time. Qala can be proud of the Church militant there with a record of resisting unsustainable development that now spans a decade. The apartment blocks now overshadowing the Qala Sanctuary are an awful monument to their defeat in valiant battle many years ago. They also took up the defence of their village when it was proposed to make it a transit route for a massive tourism and yachting development more recently. So far they have won on that.

The Verdala golf course saga was closely followed by the University chaplaincy which gave invaluable assistance to the objectors and the local farmers in preventing the abuse of former Church lands in violation of the treaty with the Holy See which binds the government and its successors in title. The unprecedented array of NGOs opposing the development found a competent and committed ally and possibly a new respect for men (and women) of the cloth. In an age when the Church is so often and often justly accused of being detached from reality, they gave authentic witness of their commitment in a socially relevant manner.

In 2001 Ceratonia Foundation had held a seminar entitled Caring for Creation which was well attended by religious persons and not only of the Catholic faith. It was addressed by Fr Sean McDonagh, an Irish Columbian monk whose service as a missionary with the forest people of the Philippines allowed him to make the connection with environmental degradation. The people he had chosen to serve had come under pressure from peasant farmers evicted from their lands by multi-nationals corporations able to influence the Philippines' government because of its desperate debt situation. He realised that serving at the far end of the chain-reaction and merely treating the symptoms was not enough.

He was infected with the urgency to address the global environmental malaise and was troubled by the absence of the Church in the crisis he found staring him in the face. Since then he has become a prolific writer addressing such issues as the Death of Life in the cataclysmic rate of the ongoing extinction of living species and that threat to humanity. One of his books, The Greening of the Church, revisits the neglected origins of Christianity, examines its relation with nature and calls for a return to origins to face the challenges of the present. Today he teaches theology of the ecology, training the trainers and making a key contribution to the environmental contribution of the Catholic Church. The establishment of a Church Commission on the Environment in Malta was a very welcome development, if not inspired by that seminar, certainly nourished by it. Coming not a moment too soon, nobody in his or her right mind would choose to complain about the delay. The environmental challenges before us remain immense and having an authoritative body established under the aegis of the Church to assist the sorely pressed environmental NGOs was unquestionably a blessing.

The Archbishop's denouncement of corruption in the grant of development permits, arrogantly rebuffed as it was, also marked a change of course or a greater interest in the justice or lack of it which remains intrinsic to planning issues in a very small country. Land use is and will ever remain Malta's premier environmental issue. It is not simply a matter of aesthetics: the loss of public amenity, the surrender to private greed and unjustified political influence are evidence of a powerful anti-system that runs the place regardless of the pious prescriptions in the Constitution. The many have lost out to the few consistently for decades and any assistance from the Church to right the balance is definitely welcome.

The Church's contribution in the area of bio-ethics will be a determining factor. Most of us come to the challenge unprepared, uninformed and ripe to be washed away by the, pro-novelty, pro-astronomic profits culture. Very few are prepared to acknowledge that the challenge before us and our personal and national responsibility in this area are on an altogether different level. Genetic engineering is sold in near constant propaganda as a wonderful new technology without any caveats. Business looks at the profits to be made and governments are always in bed with big business. It takes the very long term (infinity) outlook of an institution such as the Church to draw our attention to matters beyond the immediate gains to the possible irreversible harm to all future generations.

At every level the question will be asked: where was the Church? Did it warn, teach and lead by example? Who stood by the gate at Ta' Cenc? Who dared voice a warning about science without ethics? There is a hope that the answer will now be positive and that the Church will be able to add to its very long list of contributions to the welfare of all who inhabit these islands regardless of creed, colour or religious affiliation. As with all new challenges, the prime difficulty is whether one is able to make it out in the first place. It looks like that difficulty has been overcome by committed Christians also with regard to the environmental challenge. Hope is renewed.

Dr Vassallo is chairman of Alternattiva Demokratika - The Green Party.

hcvassallo@kemmunet.net.mt