Gambling crawling 'onto our doorsteps'

The spread of gaming into parish band clubs, under the guise of bingo centres, has set alarm bells ringing for Oasi Foundation founder Fr Emmanuel Cordina.

Spurred by the planned investment in a 24-hour bingo centre at a band club in Gozo , Fr Cordina has written to Gozo Bishop Mario Grech asking him to take action.

But the scenario is wider than that and Fr Cordina is claiming that various forms of gambling are seeping into every corner, hurting even more when they entered parish halls, convents, sports centres and other venues connected to the Church, in certain instances even being held on the parvis, and frequented by children and youths.

Fr Cordina saw this as a cause for concern not just for the country but also for the Catholic community and said his conscience pricked him to voice his preoccupations.

"Is it possible that no one is recognising the alarming damage being done among those who are becoming dependent on the thrill of excitement?"

Fr Cordina said it was a shame that, while women were, supposedly, staying at home for the good of their family and society instead of going out to work to help their husbands in financial difficulty, they were finding enough time to go and blow money that was meant for their children's maintenance and for other bills, on the premise that they were helping the Church, convents and clubs. Moreover, in some parishes, priests were falling into the temptation of organising, under the umbrella of the local council, outings to Malta, which actually ended up at a casino, he said.

Fr Cordina felt it was time for the Church to speak its mind on such moral issues: on the creation of a culture of entertainment that was leading to addictions, which were being accepted not only by society but also by the Christian community.

"Group gaming is being manipulated by those leading various civil and ecclesiastical institutions who have profits in mind and not spiritual, recreational and entertainment aims," he said.

Having reached a point where only money - and not values - was being considered, the country was experiencing a moral crisis and something had to be done.

Speaking about the "modern mentality" that was deeply rooted in society - and spreading in an alarming way into the structures of the Catholic Church - Fr Cordina said the authorities were blindfolded, hiding behind the comfortable excuse of the economy.

"No one stops progress but it is the progress of business not of families, youths and children that we are talking about."

Gambling was a social problem and gamblers needed to be cured not taken advantage of, said the priest who has a treatment centre for addictions. Hardly any research existed on the gravity of the situation, he said, pointing out that, from the information emerging from Oasi meetings and its clients, many families were ending up "smashed" as a result of debts due to gaming.

The situation was such that gambling was crawling "onto our doorsteps", he said.

Band clubs had a cultural mission to offer music to support the parish and the village feast. They were tied to parishes and should be offering a decent environment and a form of entertainment, Fr Cordina insisted. It they wanted to be cut off from the parish, they could but conveying a double message was immoral, he argued.

The reality was that band clubs were just trying to get the upper hand and crush the competition for the sake of profits, he said, pointing out that parishes could not be allowed to raise funds from "dubious" sources and this had to be controlled.

He referred to the lack of morality when it came to generating money from gambling, which led to psychological dependency and to the failure of families and lives.