From Wain to the bishops

The nature and status of voluntary organisations was at the heart of both the Archbishop's reply to "difficulties" raised, among others by yourself, to the Advent pastoral letter, and also of the Kenneth Wain versus Clare Thake Vassallo rumpus. Can you clarify a little bit the confusion that seems to reign about the relations between Church, State and voluntary organisations?

Voluntary organisations Commissioner Kenneth Wain was at odds not only with Clare Thake Vassallo wearing her PBS hat but also with the President and the Archbishop. The last two were blamed for not registering entities depending upon them with the voluntary organisations' office. To me, the problem seems to have arisen because the relevant law sought to kill two birds with one stone, which is worse than what hunters do.

The legislator primarily aimed at giving the legal status which bodies other than trade unions and band clubs previously lacked. But at the same time the attempt was made, by the side as it were, to regulate collections of money for good causes facilitated by the government.

The result of this amalgam was that entities such as the Malta Community Chest Fund and Id-Dar tal-Providenza were brought under the umbrella-word of 'voluntary organisations', when their nature is obviously very different from that of a football club or a group with subscribing members. The fact that a unit set up by the head of State or a welfare institution that functions totally as part of the Church also collects funds surely does not turn them into voluntary organisations in any ordinary sense of the phrase.

The present undignified disputes had actually been anticipated in the drafting and discussion of the confusingly multi- purpose law.

Indeed, the bishops' pastoral letter suggests implicitly that rather than Id-Dar tal-Providenza, it is the Church as such, or more precisely the Catholic Church in Malta, that Wain could more reasonably be clamouring for registration with his office if they have any appetite for certain State facilities.

In point of fact, there are a number of Church organisations that have registered with the Commissioner. However, the majority seem to have been given guidelines from within the Church not to register while dialogue on the subject is being pursued between high authorities.

To me, the prospects of a happy solution seem dim unless it is recognised that different legal provisions are needed for the different sorts of entities that have been placed in one unwieldy basket by the legislator.

How does the bishops' pastoral letter come into this disputed terrain?

The part of the pastoral letter which had raised some difficulty in my mind was that in which the bishops insisted that the Church was a voluntary organisation, like a sports club or an environmental lobby group.

Archbishop Paul Cremona wrote his article to clarify difficulties raised by commentators. This move was in itself a welcome descent into the mêlée but he did not explicitly dwell upon this point. He was more concerned with dispelling misgivings about other issues that had troubled other commentators, ranging from Ranier Fsadni to Fr Joe Borg. For instance, he ruled out the Durkheimian connotations of the phrase 'collective conscience'. (Could 'consciousness' be a better translation of kuxjenza?)

Apart from giving a highly personal account of what was indeed meant by the rather esoteric phrase, the Archbishop devoted most of his article to denying that the pastoral letter was 'exclusivist' in intent. Many had indeed taken its gist to be to warn against being Catholics with 'buts'. You either fully comply with the rules, or you're out.

The Archbishop stressed over and over again that being outside the Church did not mean being kicked out of either God's or the Church's own love. The real difficulty was, in fact, not about being excluded from love, but from effective membership of the Church.

The Church is a voluntary organisation in the sense that anyone has the right not to belong to it. Membership can be neither by coercion nor by its simply being taken for granted because practically everyone is assumed to belong. It has to be by deliberate choice.

That today should not be open to doubt as it used to be before Vatican II. The actual question is whether anyone has the right to belong. For instance, some Church authorities claimed the right to exclude from Communion voters for Barack Obama, while some bishops apologised for the exclusivist stance of their colleagues.

The Bill on Equality in the process of enactment in the UK generally forbids any entity, including the Church, from practising discrimination on grounds of gender or sexual orientation. However, if it implied that the Catholic Church could not prohibit the ordination of women or gays as priests, it would be going against freedom of religion.

So the draft Bill exempted priestly ordination from application of this provision. But the Bill defines a priest as someone who spends over half his time either leading worship or preaching. Since no priest does this, the Bill, unless amended, would still make Roman Catholicism illegal.

I was reminded that the Maltese government only extended its lease to the Casino Maltese on condition that it ceased to be a men-only club and began to admit women. Now suppose that the lessees were a lesbian club, would the government have obliged them to admit men? Defining the term 'voluntary organisation' too loosely is fraught with perilous implications.

Would you say that the Camillerifest which began yesterday and continues this evening at the Manoel Theatre was organised by a voluntary organisation?

No, it was organised by just one person, the pianist Maria Blanco, voluntarily and admirably.

Fr Peter Serracino Inglott was talking to Miriam Vincenti.