Sunday, 29th November 2009
No one size fits all, feast enthusiasts tell Church
The Church is seeking to stamp out unruly behaviour.
Better management of feast celebrations would only occur through self regulation, the national association for enthusiasts said yesterday.
The Għaqda Nazzjonali Armar tal-Festi fit-Toroq, formed earlier this month, presented its counter proposals to the Curia's consultation document on feasts during a news conference yesterday.
The association said if the Archdiocese felt the need for an improvement in the celebration of feasts, it should make informal recommendations to be adopted by mutual consent.
"The ecclesiastical authorities need to understand that the implementation of general measures to fit each and every feast is impossible because they all have different characteristics. What they can do instead is develop a set of guiding principles," association president Godfrey Farrugia said.
The association said the cost of festivities was paid by "the people for the people" so the Church should respect their wishes.
"The ecclesiastical authorities are entering into areas that are not their concern because they fall under the competencies of civil authorities," the association said, adding that the Curia's proposals, if implemented, would punish everyone for abuse by the few.
The document by the Church lists a range of proposals on the celebration of village feasts with the aim of restoring the religious and community aspects of the festivities.
Some of the proposals target feast decorations. They include the banning of decorations known as sorpriżi (surprises) because they instil rivalry, the limitation of decorations during band marches to only flags and balloons, the control of Church decorations and damask to reduce pique, and an inventory of decorations to be drawn up in each parish before 2012, with no further additions allowed as of the following year.
The feast enthusiasts said the tone set in the Archdiocese's document was "authoritarian, including threats of blackmail". The Church had said it would withdraw from the celebrations if practices are not followed.
"It would be ironic if the Church were to do this. It is stressing the religious aspect of festivities, but its withdrawal would effectively eliminate the religious element," the counterproposals read.
The document presented by the Church had only served to create division between feast enthusiasts and the clergy, Dr Farrugia said, while emphasising that the association was not adopting a confrontational attitude.
The feast enthusiasts proposed a workshop that would lead to an internal analysis of each feast celebrated in Malta, where those involved in the discussions would recommend solutions to be adopted.
The Church's proposals are open to consultation until tomorrow.
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Comments
So I ask this question, How fervent or militant or to what degree one must induge himself in village feasts in order to qualify as an enthusiast or to graduate up to the fanatic grade??
Who is going to be the judge of the various candidates involved?
I mean I have frequently heard people say, "X' kaxxa murtali kellna hi u hierga l-Vara eh !!"
An other one observing the same scene exclaimed, Kif qazzu kull m' haw, ghax m'hemmx bzonn dan id-damdim kollu minn dawn l-erba' illi jiftahru kemm huma kbar (f'xiex??) u hadd ma jista' ghalihom!!!
So in my opinion if you have any hobby do practise it in private because what in your opinion constitutes splendour may constitute nothing but plain rubbish to others & thus vice versa!!
In fact many people who can afford it opt to go for a few days abroad just to avoid the feast derangement !! We must have have some neutral territory!!
Regretfully, the problem concerning the pique and other intolerance during local feasts has been blown up and regularly used by various parish priests for their own personal (parish office) use and for their own (personal) commitments in the parish and in the church (building).
Various rival feasts have been helped by the same parish priest during past years for them to get a place in history and in the hierarchy of the church. Some of them use the rivalry to spend more in internal decorations; most of which would not have been thought of if no competition existed.
Now the parish priest are shifting all the blame on the band clubs. Why didn't they have discussions with the various other organizations such as those involved in the internal decorations, those who spend the whole year preparing the exterior decorations, the fireworks association, the fratellanzi etc? Why?
Many feel that the so called two way communication is just taught to devotees from the church and not to be used by the church itself.
Pity because Archbishop Pawl Cremona was a feast enthusiast.