The ongoing debate on the issue of irregular migration challenges everyone, including, of course, the Church. After the bishops’ statements on the subject, the spontaneous question that crops up in our minds as Maltese citizens is: why is the Church entitled to speak out on social issues that affect Maltese society?

Certain people think that the Church should keep her mouth shut and mind her own business. For them, the Church should solely concentrate on the spiritual aspect of life not the material one.

Unfortunately, these brothers and sisters tend to forget that, irrespective of what their personal beliefs might be, the hard objective fact is that God has become one of us in the person of Jesus Christ. Consequently, the Incarnation of the Second Person of the Holy Trinity has established once and for all the undeniable truth that there is no social reality of whatever kind that God’s light’s redeeming cannot reach to save.

Every human event, no matter how complex, is never alien to God’s educational love. Thus, it always remains the subject of God’s providential and mysterious care.

Jesus Christ does not live or work within a vacuum. Rather, He is vividly present and active in His Church. To her, He gave the subsequent sacrosanct mandate: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age” (Matt 28:18-20).

The gospel message must be proclaimed to everyone because every person on this earth has been created to receive the good news of salvation.

The gospel aims at redeeming the human person as a whole, including her/his physical needs.

At the Nazareth synagogue, Jesus initiated His messianic activity by applying to Himself the prophecy enunciated in the book of the prophet Isaiah:

“The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord” (Luke 4:18-19).

Jesus set a definite new order of living wherein those who are oppressed are handed back their God-given dignity as persons created on God’s image.

Moreover, those who will be admitted into God’s Kingdom, be they Catholics, Christians, adherents of other religions or even people who claim that they have no religion at all, should first love God in their neighbour.

God’s Kingdom is for those who feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, welcome the stranger, clothe the naked, visit the sick and the prisoner (see Matt 25: 35-39). These will be the righteous who shall inherit eternal life (see verse 46).

Are we humble enough to let the Church’s teaching illumine our consciences on social issues?

Out of great love for Jesus Christ, the people in need and conscientiously mindful of every person’s eternal destiny, the Church is obliged to shed this transforming light of the gospel on what is taking place. When addressing the Belgian Ambassador to the Holy See, Charles Ghislain, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI said: “As an institution [the Church has] the right to express itself publicly. It shares this right with all individuals and institutions, with the scope of speaking its mind on questions of common interest.

“The Church respects the right of everyone to think differently from it; it would like that its right to expression also be respected. The Church is a depository of a teaching, of a religious message that it received from Jesus Christ. It can be summarized with the following words from Sacred Scripture: ‘God is love’ (1 John 4:16) and throws its light upon the meaning of the personal, familial and social life of man.

“The Church, having the common good as its objective, asks nothing other than the freedom to be able to propose this message, without imposing it on anyone, in respect for freedom of conscience”.

Are we humble enough to let the Church’s teaching illumine our consciences on the social issues we are living in as a country?