Roamer's column

Today's first piece on this Easter Sunday - it is appropriate that it should not be left to the end - is taken from G.K. Chesterton's book, The Everlasting Man.

"And if there be any sound that can produce a silence, we may surely be silent about the end and the extremity; when a cry was driven out of that darkness in words dreadfully distinct and dreadfully unintelligible, which man shall never understand in all the eternity they have purchased for him; and for one annihilating instant an abyss that is not for our thoughts had opened even in the unity of the absolute; and God had been forsaken by God.

"They took the body down from the cross and one of the few rich men among the first Christians obtained permission to bury it in a rock tomb in the garden; the Romans setting a military guard lest there should be some riot and attempt to recover the body...

"It was well that the tomb should be sealed with all the secrecy of ancient eastern sepulchre and guarded by the authority of the Caesars.

"For in that second cavern the whole of that great and glorious humanity which we call antiquity was gathered up and covered over; and in that place it was buried. It was the end of a very great thing called human history; the history that was merely human.

"The mythologies and the philosophies were buried there, the gods and the heroes and the sages. In the great Roma phrase, they had lived. But as they could only live, so they could only die; and they were dead.

"On the third day the friends of Christ coming at daybreak to the place found the grave empty and the stone rolled away; but even they hardly realised that the world had died in the night. What they were looking at was the first day of a new creation, with a new heaven and a new earth; and in a semblance of the gardener God walked again in the garden, in the cool not of the evening but of the dawn."

Meanwhile...

I was forwarded a cutting of a report knocked together by The Malta Independent on Sunday staff (TMIS). It was about Mass being celebrated at St John's prior to the swearing-in ceremony of the new President. George Abela expressed his wish that the Eucharistic offering form part of the day in which he took up his appointment. TMIS found this strange; which itself was strange.

This was the "first time in the history of Malta as a sovereign state", we were told, that this had happened. To which the more reasonable reaction should have been one of astonishment that such has been the case, of surprise that Dom Mintoff, who nominated Malta's first, second and third President, didn't do Mass. Many, "even among the congregation", did not go along with Abela's reasoning, but if it riled them so much, why did they not skip Mass? It would have been rude to the President? Not as rude as muttering about it behind his back.

"Many maintained that at a time when the Maltese were becoming less denominational, to begin (sic) the inaugural ceremony with a Mass flew in the face of the current trend of what many Maltese people think." This sort of in yer face comment staggers belief. After all, the separation of Church and State does not mean the divorce of Church and State.

That Holy Mass, the Eucharist, should be made to sound as if it were some extraneous intrusion in a land whose people have known it, participated in it for centuries, has an alien and hostile ring about it. That Church and State should celebrate together should be a matter for rejoicing, not for natter. TMIS missed out by misunderstanding this.

Meanwhile, back in Italy, their President is organising a concert to celebrate the fourth anniversary of the Pope's selection to the papacy. Our President may well consider honouring our Archbishop in simili modo, or vice-versa when the occasion arises. What would TMIS not say to that?

No place for euphemism

Last October, Malta's ambassador to the United Nations Saviour Borg addressed a committee discussing the advancement of women. At some point he said that although the statement made by France on behalf of the EU member states generally (sic) reflected Malta's point of view on the subject, he wished to "clarify (Malta's) position with respect to the language relating to the issue of sexual and reproductive health and rights.

"The national legislation of Malta considers the termination of pregnancy through procedures of induced abortion as illegal, and does not recognise abortion as a measure of family planning. (It) has consistently expressed its reservation on the use of terms such as 'reproductive rights', 'reproductive services' and 'control of fertility.

"...women empowerment and gender equality", Mr Borg went on, "should not in any way create an obligation on any party to consider abortion as a legitimate form of reproductive health rights, services or commodities. We request that this position be put on the records of this meeting and be taken into account when reporting similar reports in future."

Ten days ago, during negotiations at the Commission on Population and Development (CPD), Malta again spoke out against language that could be interpreted as promoting abortion. Borg stated that his delegation was finding it more difficult accepting the resolutions of UN bodies like CPD where there were consistent attempts to expand "reproductive health" to include abortion. Other states joined Malta to speak out against any language that could be construed to "support, endorse or promote abortion".

This was good news; a calm and steadfast dismissal of euphemistic language that avoids the a-word and tries to insinuate it into some resolution through a ludicrous choice of words; like reproductive health, which chisels away at reproduction.

Crazy? Crazy

The recently anti-Malta's-membership-of-the-EU Labour candidate for the EP elections in June, Sharon Ellul Bonici, even more recently expressed herself on the subject of abortion in the sense that she was personally against abortion, but she was also pro-choice; which is rather like saying that one is against murder but people should have a choice as to whether to murder or not. For the whole debate over abortion is, on one hand, the elimination of an unborn child and, on the other, the claim made for the pre-eminent choice of a mother carrying a child to destroy it inside her womb.

Ellul Bonici says she belongs to the first group (pro-life) and, contradictorily, upholds the second (pro-choice: "The state should not constrain a woman from terminating her pregnancy..."). This is vintage Nancy Pelosi, personally pro-life but publicly pro-choice, and Speaker of the American House of Representatives to boot; yet she still had the audacity to think she could get mileage out of an audience with the Pope earlier this year. As it turned out, she did not even manage a photo opportunity.

A Vatican note was released to say that, "His holiness took the opportunity to speak of the requirements of the natural moral law and the Church's consistent teaching on the dignity of human life form conception to natural death which enjoin all Catholics, and especially legislators, jurists and those responsible for the common good of society, to work in cooperation with all men and women of goodwill in creating a just system of laws capable of protecting human life at all stages of its development."

Gift of Life (Malta) understandably challenged Ellul Bonici to clarify her position. The Labour MEP candidate was reported in The Times as saying, among other things, that she believed, incongruously to my mind, that "the state should not interfere on decisions such as abortion and gay marriage because these are issues that could be overruled in the European courts".

Questioned on the matter, Ellul Bonici refused to say "whether she was pro-choice or not and said she was not campaigning for abortion"; which is not the point. The point is the dichotomy between her personal belief and her political opinion; and which of these would come to the fore if it came to the crunch in a parliamentary session on the subject in Strasbourg or wherever. She says she would toe the party line.

As her personal opinion was expressed publicly, it fell into the public domain; to such an extent, indeed, that she accepted an invitation to take part in a programme to discuss abortion. Her decision was aborted by the Labour party minutes before the programme started.

The presenter was informed that "the party had not allowed her to attend". In short, the party recognised that a fault line in its relationship with the electorate had been created and stepped into the breach by hauling her out of that breach to prevent further damage to the party.

Ellul Bonici says she accepts the party line. The view she expressed on the subject is at variance with that line and suggests that she is prepared to run with the hares and hunt with the hounds (thank you, Peter T.).

It was only natural that her position should have been questioned.