Some incidents are trivial in themselves but could be symptoms of something more disturbing. Last week, in a talk on religion and Maltese culture that I gave to the board members of the Archbishop's Seminary, I used seemingly trivial incidents as a lens to magnify certain currents in Maltese culture.

By the time I gave my talk, Fr Peter Serracino Inglott had already done the rounds in three cultural TV programmes to plug last Tuesday's performance of Charles Camilleri's Missa Mundi - an evening in honour of the French Jesuit Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955). Teilhard contributed with distinction to the scientific knowledge of human evolution, as well as to a Christian understanding of evolution in general. But the first reaction of all three programme presenters was to express surprise that a priest believed in evolution.

Of course, the surprise is that they expressed surprise. Teilhard and Fr Peter are not minority voices. Many Roman Catholic priests have a scientific training. The Vatican has a respected astronomical observatory. Not only is there no official teaching that Darwin's theory says anything contrary to Church doctrine; Pope John Paul II long ago stated that Darwin was concerned with how, while the Book of Genesis is concerned with why, our world was born.

How symptomatic is the TV presenters' surprise? Sufficiently, I would say. A short while ago another newspaper, Malta Today (MT), ran a story about how "creationism" was displacing Darwin in our schools. I am not sure how true that is in fact but what is true is that the Education Department's representative who replied to MT's questions made it sound so.

She said that, for us, Darwin's theory is only a theory, while God definitely did create the world - as though one had to choose between one and the other. Put to one side the question of whether state schools should even pay attention to Church doctrine on such issues. I gathered that the Education Department's representative meant her answer to be a representation of Roman Catholic doctrine; but it was far from it: It is in fact only what certain Protestant evangelical Churches teach.

I used these examples to illustrate to the Archbishop why some of the clichéd stories we tell ourselves about Maltese culture are so misleading.

One story is that of cultural bombardment, where the Church is seen to be under siege from a secularised world without. Another is the reckless speculators' story, where Christian values are being lost in the process of being traded for dud shares sold by cultural con-artists.

Each of these stories presents a plot with two sides - victims and aggressors. But the real plot, I argued, has at least three sides. In the bombardment story, one must make space for friendly fire. In the speculators' story, one must allow for badly audited accounts.

The polarisation between Christianity and a secularised world is an American evangelical notion. However, it is increasingly penetrating how Maltese Catholics understand the world, thinking they are doing so on the terms of their faith. As an interpretation, however, it actually distorts Roman Catholic values.

Consider a statement issued this week by the Għaqda Studenti tat-Teoloġija (GĦST) of the University of Malta. Commenting on the protests at the University of Rome (La Sapienza) at the invitation issued to Pope Benedict to address the University, the GĦST was reported by this newspaper to have stated: "The time is over for the Church to keep accepting everything and being apologetic in order to be accepted by the masses. Now is the time for each one to show where his values truly lie, whether with Christ or with the secularised world..."

If these words reflect what the theology students said, then they are staggering. Since when has the Church "accepted everything" when it has made a point of taking unfashionable stands on matters of principle? Are the students throwing doubt on the apologies made by Pope John Paul II for certain dark incidents in the Church's history?

I doubt they are but it only goes to show how a certain polarising rhetoric, imported from elsewhere, can take on a life of its own and blur our thinking. Is the La Sapienza incident, after all, such a high stakes game that it calls for an apocalyptic choice for Christ or "the secularised world"?

Pope Benedict himself has downplayed the incident - and taught the best lesson to the Roman academics still warped in 19th century Church-state politics. In doing this, the Pope remembered that Christian perspective that the theology students, eager to sound a battle charged, forgot.

Christianity has a perspective that is both long and broad because it is spread over 2,000 years and across the globe. Set against what the Church has witnessed and continues to witness, from the judicial murders of its founder and its first bishops, to the martyrs, and the torture, maiming, rape, starving, murder and genocide of innocent people for whom dedicated missionaries work, the La Sapienza incident pales to insignificance.

Christians are called to choose between Christ and Mafiosi, dictators and robber barons, not between Christ and attention-seekers.

The Pope also remembered that many of the Church's values - beginning with truth, reason and tolerance - it shares with humanist non-believers. It is why he claims that Europe needs to recognise its Christian heritage.

The theology students, on the other hand, made a declaration that, taken seriously, would justify those Europeans who say that the Union today owes nothing to Christianity.

For all its good intentions, the theology students' statement (assuming it was reported well) should be counted as friendly fire, as a bad accounting of the capital of Christianity.

It fritters away that perspective and those values that would enable the Church to speak to contemporary concerns with forceful insight.

And insofar as the theology students' statement is symptomatic of a wider trend, it shows that the Church needs to address not only a challenge from without but also a narrowing perspective from within.

ranierfsadni@europe.com

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