The right to vote and choose our representatives is a hard-fought and sacred right that so many people are denied and have died for. One needs only to look at the current tragedy in Syria and other Arab countries.
Politicians who are hostile to Catholic values do not deserve Catholic voters’ support
At such a crucial time, more than ever, Catholics have a grave responsibility to raise their justified concerns over the unfolding future of our country’s social and political development. This was stressed in the recent pastoral letter, which stands out for its brevity and clarity.
Catholics in Malta have reason for concern. Public opinion is being manipulated by organised forces in the media and political arena that are hostile to Malta’s Christian heritage and traditions. Their aim is to eliminate a meaningful Catholic role in the country’s destiny.
As the American bishop Charles Chaput says in his book Render unto Caesar, ‘freedom of worship’ is not the same as ‘freedom of religion’. Religious freedom includes the right to preach, teach, assemble, organise and engage society and its issues publicly, both as individuals and together as communities of faith.
The Church states that ethical relativism, which maintains that there is no objective or universal criteria to establish the foundations of a correct hierarchy of values, is one of the greatest threats to democracies. When there is nothing objectively true which can be known by all and form the basis of our common life, then there is no foundation for a truly free society.
John Paul II, who experienced Nazism and Communism firsthand, said: “As history demonstrates, a democracy without values easily turns into open or thinly disguised totalitarianism.”
For democracy to be fruitful it has to be participative in every sense. The high percentage of absenteeism in the divorce referendum and in local council elections, and the cavalier way renegade Nationalist MPs treated those who voted for them, should be of great concern. They make a mockery of democracy.
This was also seen in the way the Leader of the Opposition abused his authority without an electoral mandate to promote the introduction of divorce and by his denying the freedom of his MPs to vote freely on this issue. Unfortunately, no political party can be trusted to safeguard core Catholic values.
Voters cannot take for granted that fundamental Christian values will be safe. Catholic voters cannot just be content with casting a vote for a party and then sit back on their laurels. We face an increasingly corrosive secular political vision and a consumerist economic model that is leading to the exclusion of God from the public sphere.
Experience has shown us that with the relentlessness of a battering ram, those who are hostile to our Catholic identity will keep chipping away at it, whichever party governs.
In their anxiety to grab votes from every quarter, both major political parties have shamelessly ignored the Catholic viewpoint with the lame excuse of upholding a spurious concept of separation between Church and State.
That they are able to get away with it, is a poor reflection on the Catholic voters who have proved again and again to be uninformed, indifferent and disloyal. This should not be the case. Despite certain shortcomings and the need for improvement, Malta has an enviable proportional representation system of voting, which makes most votes count, and more importantly, gives us the freedom to vote for individuals.
These prospective candidates are usually from our locality and it is our responsibility and duty to know what they stand for. We should also try to assess their character and track record. Politicians who are ambiguous, unreliable and worse still, hostile to Catholic values do not deserve Catholic voters’ support, irrespective of which party they stand for.
We expect politicians to be clear on ethical issues before, not after the election. They should not be afraid to defend life, the family and the right of Catholics to influence the political agenda. They must be ready to fight policies that undermine the family, threaten life, discriminate against the vulnerable, favour vested interests, weaken accountability, harm the environment and foster partisan tension and violence.
The future beckons and Catholics have to make their stand. What is needed are Christian men and women of courage who are morally coherent and do not separate their faith from their political participation. We must work for society’s conversion by working for the conversion of hearts as well as the transformation of structures which promote the true common good.
We have only ourselves to blame if we get representatives that are unworthy.
klausvb@gmail.com