The Church and illegal immigration

In the past few weeks the Curia and the Jesuits have been engaged in a debate of sorts about illegal immigration. The Jesuits - through the acting director of the Jesuit Refugee Service and their monthly magazine, Orbis - expressed the opinion that the Church authorities are silent about this issue. The Curia reacted by saying that the Church has taken a definitive stand against racism.

Such public debates about Church-related subjects and involving such high-profile sides is not common among us. Therefore one should not let the discussion go unnoticed.

It all started in The Times of October 12. Our sister paper produced two pages full of comments about this subject following the position taken publicly by the Alleanza Nazzjonali Repubblikana. One of the persons asked to comment was Fr Paul Pace, SJ. He is a former provincial, the present acting director of the Jesuit Refugee Service and a lecturer of Moral Theology at the University. Fr Pace's short comment included a reference to what he described as the "an unfortunate option of the local Church not to get involved in the debate about irregular migration."

Two or three days later the subject came up during a press conference held at the Curia where Fr Joe Galea Curmi clearly stated that the Church had taken a clear stand against racism. Fr Galea Curmi is the assistant pastoral secretary at the Curia's Pastoral Secretariat and a lecturer at the Department of Pastoral Theology at the University. The Curia official's comments were expanded into a full blown article which, since then, was published in several newspapers including this paper (October 23) and The Times (November 5).

Fr Galea Curmi mentioned three references to strengthen his case. He quotes the Synod Document on Diaconia and Justice, published in November 2003. He also said that the same issue featured prominently in a Synod publication on social issues published in September 2004. According to Fr Galea Curmi, last February Archbishop Mercieca emphasised the same point. The Curia official also wrote that the Plan of the Archdiocese for 2005-2006 specifically mentioned projects by the Secretariat for Emigration and the Jesuit Refugee Service.

His parting shot was: "It is indeed ironic that some correspondents, who ignored the pro-active stand that the Church in Malta at the time, now call on the Church to speak against racism."

It is not clear who the concrete target of this missive is. One thing is certain: one presumes that it cannot be addressed at the critics coming from the Jesuits' fold as they are aware both of the quotations taken from the documents of the Synod and also of the work that the Jesuit Refugee Service is doing. These two aspects were the "proof" given by the Curia that it is not silent or absent. But despite the fact that Fr Pace and Orbis know about all this they still maintained that the Church is silent during this debate.

Let us refer to the editorial of the October edition of Orbis, the Jesuit monthly. This edition reached its readers in the last ten days. One of the sub-headings of the editorial about illegal immigration is: "The silence of the Church". The editor refers to the Synod documents and also to the work of the Jesuit Refugee Service and the Emigrants Commission. For him this is clearly not enough.

The editor still states: "Perhaps the most surprising aspect of this issue (illegal immigration) is the total silence of the Church in Malta during this period when Malta is searching its collective conscience to decide what to do in this new and tragic situation... How will history judge this silence?"

We hardly blame the Orbis editorial for taking this position. The Curia came up with three quotations spread over three years on the subject. One can hardly describe as an active debater one who only speaks three times in so many years. One can say that the Church was speaking through the actions of its members. This is true. But even those who are working in this field are puzzled, not to say hurt, by the silence - at least relative silence - of the hierarchy. The Church is still in time to make its voice heard, to enlighten the country and to help it take sensible and realistic positions in such a difficult situation.