Someone should send 'er this

Ines Ayala Sender should have done her homework a bit better than she did; I'll rephrase that. Sender lacked the basic requirement of a rapporteur leading a committee hearing before the European Parliament's Budgetary Control Commission: the ability to conduct fairly, if reports sent from Brussels were correct, a process that was meant to discover whether the committee should say 'aye' or 'nay' to Malta's nomination of Louis Galea as a member of the European Court of Auditors.

Let's be clear. These hearings are necessary; their aim is to make sure that the credentials and the capabilities of the candidate are sufficient unto the post. Question is, should the committee involve itself, as it did in this case, in allegations that had been thoroughly investigated by the National Audit Office and the Commission Against Corruption? Both the office and the commission cleared him.

The rapporteur must have known the answer to the question; and if she did not, she jolly well ought to have. In the same way she took the newspaper allegations to her bosom, Sender should have asked for information to make sure that all the committee members were made aware of Galea's innocence. She obviously did not do so or would not have re-opened a case that had been rigorously dealt with, and with which outcome she should have made herself familiar.

It rather makes one wonder whether, when an important committee, faced with a fact and an allegation, should choose to bat on the side of the allegation, Ivan Camilleri's report on the matter, filed from Brussels, gave readers an intelligent idea of what happened and how things developed - even in a 33-minute hearing. But for all that, perhaps because of that, I was much struck by his sources' remarks on Louis Galea's chances of nomination.

They seemed to be in two minds about being of one mind. Thus, quoting sources, "the fact that there was a deliberate attempt to damage Galea's reputation by circulating a damaging newspaper article about his political past does not reflect well". On whom did it not reflect well? On those who "deliberate(ly)" tried to sully the nominee, or on those who circulated the article? And should a "damaging newspaper article", should allegations have been circulated in the first place without a factual and official counter to them? This was available had the rapporteur asked for it.

"The fact that the rapporteur felt the need to raise these allegations publicly in the hearing can also be interpreted as a bad sign." We would have preferred to learn more from those sources about who circulated the stuff and - I'm not trying to flay a dead horse - why no attempt was made by the committee to ask for the findings of both the National Audit Office and the Commission Against Corruption?

Instead, having said that the circulation of that article "does not reflect well", same sources were of the opinion that "MEPs should have no difficulty in (sic) approving his nomination". Difficult to reconcile these apparent contradictions.

Why not?

It was inevitable that the Prime Minister's appointment of parliamentary assistants would come in for criticism from some quarters; some of this was unashamedly puerile. Yet what Lawrence Gonzi did was sensible, both politically and for reasons of state. Politically, his decision went straight to the heart of a situation that was recognised by some as creating a diversion for the government from its main business; this at a time when it was essential for the government to be entirely focused on the work in hand.

By introducing parliamentary assistants to the system he sent out the message that the atmospherics between the executive and the remainder of the parliamentary group had been removed. By sticking to his decision to run a lean executive, as he had promised before the last election, Gonzi faced down calls, and was correct in doing so, for a dramatic re-shuffle.

Rather than that, he artfully re-parcelled elements of ministers' portfolios without the need for one, slimming down this one, fattening up that; in Dolores Cristina's case too much. At this critical stage of the government's tenure a re-shuffle had the wherewithal to boomerang something 'orrible. So, yes, Gonzi got it right and in the process of so doing, shown himself to be a man who could think outside the box: lean executive, new faces, both dealing with perennial problems.

And yet...

The Christian pessimist in Europe is gloomy about the future of Christianity on a continent that was baptised in the blood of martyrs, game for lions and the crowds that turned up to watch the 10 a.m. show inside the Coliseum. He sees around him not only a potential for Europe's Islamisation - Eurabia, in

Niall Fergusson's memorable contraction - through the sheer weight of growing numbers on the part of settled immigrants. He is informed that a falling birth rate among indigenous Europeans has reached critical proportions. He also sees that potential increased a hundredfold by a moral relativism and an aggressive secularism second to none. He cannot help feeling a sense of doom gathering around the place, as the family, the basic unit of society, comes under assault from all quarters.

Last November, Lord Jonathan Sacks, the Chief Rabbi of Great Britain, was invited to deliver the 2009 Annual Theos Lecture. I came across a printed version of it recently. He asked and answered three questions: Why has religion survived? What is its place in the liberal democratic state? What are the opportunities and imperatives for the future?

A propos the Christian pessimist's fears, and his own, he agreed that Europe was today's most secular region in the world. Using 2004 figures he also pointed out that population growth in most European countries was negative and, he could have added, but did not, that in a number of cases population decline could become irreversible. He saw clearly that in indigenous terms, Europe was dying and would die unless it got its family act together. For good measure, he connected contemporary Europe's state to that of third-century pre-Christian Greece and quoted Polybius:

"The fact is, that the people of Hellas had entered upon the false ostentation, avarice and laziness, and were therefore becoming unwilling to marry, or if the did marry, to bring up the children born to them; the majority were only willing to bring up at most one or two."

Lord Jonathan Sacks rounded that off with a dire comment: "That is why Greece died. That is where Europe is today."

He went on to counter Camus's contention that the only serious philosophical question was, "Why should I not commit suicide?", with another: The only serious philosophical question today is, "Why should I have a child?"

Since Roe v Wade in America in 1973, the question has been answered in part by close to 50 million abortions. (By today, we will know whether President Barack Obama's healthcare bill, which for the first time allocates billions of dollars to federal funding of abortion, has passed).

The point here is that the more Europe and the United States cave in to the culture of death, the deeper they dig their own grave; the more they denigrate the culture of life, the coarser will their societies become; the more they weaken the traditional family the weaker their societies will grow; the more they cling to relativism the sooner they will lose any clash with fundamentalism, for the fundamentalist has no time for relativism - indeed, he scorns it; the more they deny religion its space in society and the public square, the more will freedom be threatened.

And on this last point, Lord Sacks reminds us of Tocqueville's description of religion as "the surest pledge fore the duration of freedom".

The Christian pessimist has reason to be despondent; but against that despondency he should take heart. For even as the clouds darken over Europe, elsewhere and in the most unlikely places they are not only dispersing; the sun shines brightly. Take Africa, where the Church grows in numbers despite some hostile environments. For that matter, take China.

I understand there are more Catholics in that country today than card-bearing members of the communist party. And we have seen for ourselves how the faith, which should have been extinguished in the Soviet Union through wholesale persecution and the destruction of churches across the land - Lenin and Stalin both made that extinction a matter of policy - survived against all odds and since the fall of communism two decades ago, is starting to thrive.

Europe may be dying but the kiss of life may come from unexpected quarters. The missionaries that went to Africa would be pleased to see that African missionaries have come to the rescue of Europe. Man's ways must seem mysterious to God, but His own are even more mysterious.