The opinion piece by Fr Mario Attard, Hello All Priests, This Is Fatima Calling (May 19) shows just how far Malta has still got to go to rid itself of anachronistic religion, ignorance and superstition. Priestly sermons and religious opinion just don't belong in a "news" paper and would not have seen the light of day in any other English language secular newspaper anywhere else in the world.
Consequently, one is drawn to the conclusion that The Times' idea of journalism and its concept of the debt of service and contribution to the common good owed by good corporate citizens to the country are flawed and heavily influenced by Catholic power brokers.
The editor knows what Newtonian thought is and what its antithesis Vatican thought is; so why would he publish Fr Attard's opinion which celebrates Fatima, the belief in which requires the suppression of centuries old proven fundamental laws of physics?
Fatima is about ladies coming and going from heaven, appearing then disappearing; and, in 1917, a spinning sun crashing to earth. Hysteria one might say; but no - in 1950 Pope Pius XII saw his own spinning-sun vision and derived from that the dogma of God's message that Mary rose into the freezing vacuum of space body and soul.
Fatima is about assassins' bullets being diverted so Pope John Paul II may survive and other nonsense.
How many of Newton's Laws of Physics would have to be broken for these phenomena to happen? Well they didn't happen; or at least no one in full command of one's mental faculties would believe they did for one moment. It's just "faith" one might say. But it isn't just "faith". Once rational, scientific thought is suspended, and magic, superstition and miracles are given credibility, then anything's possible for the gullible; far too many of whom occupy Parliament. Thus, innocuous "faith" morphs, as it has always done in Malta, into political power; power to block divorce, IVF and other human rights; and to impose the Catholic Church on to our Constitution.
Magic, superstition and miracles are not what a national newspaper is supposed to be about.
The Times, under the guise of freedom of religion, is allowing its own force to be used to prevent Malta from having its manumission from religion.
Back to Fatima, the sight of Ratzinger in the 21st century talking to a cast lump of plaster (or whatever) shaped into a miniature woman was pathetic. That seemingly innocuous moment represents the skid marks of the wheels of civilised Europe as they grind forward under the weight of the remnant dragging chains of anachronistic religion; and groan against the handbrake of religion on progressive thought, science, social justice and secular freedom.
Every time The Times prints a religious article such as Fr Attard's, it shackles another length of heavy chain to the vehicle of Maltese progress; its job is to help remove them. Does The Times forget, like our President, that the vast majority of Maltese are secular and not religious?