I agree with Martin Scicluna’s article ‘The voice of the Church’ (Times of Malta, July 2) about “the concern expressed about the Maltese Church’s difficulties in getting its voice heard”. I agree with Archbishop Paul Cremona and it pains me to see a pastoral document of the bishops pushed aside in the fifth column of a local paper; likewise some snappy summaries of the bishops’ document in the sound and television media.
All this proves what Mgr Cremona stated, that the “voice of the Church is being undermined”.
Scicluna questions why the three bishops are not being heard. Quite rightly he says that like Pope Francis they “must capture the hearts and minds of those they are addressing”. Sometimes this does not happen, not because of the content, but much more because of the language, style and way the message is transmitted.
In so doing they should have the support of the clergy, who should be the mediators when preaching Sunday homilies. Alas, many leave much to be desired.
Among the three things Scicluna suggests is “the need to devise a coordinated action plan” on how to put across the message. Allow me to illustrate through my past 60 years experience in the media in Malta and Italy how best this could be achieved.
The Church in Malta has very limited resources of its own to make its voice heard. It has a weekly paper, Leħen Is-Sewwa, which recently has made great strides. It also has a number of religious magazines and two radio stations. Often the message through these media goes to those who are already converted.
The time has come for the Church, or preferably a lay group, to have its own television station.
This has been my dream since 1955 when I returned from Rome and the United States. I suggested this to Archbishop Michael Gonzi who put me in touch with Marquis Scicluna, known as Iċ-Ċisk, who was a keen radio amateur.
I found very few people who liked the idea and the majority all said Malta was too small to have a television station. As narrated in my book Sinjali Maltin ta’ Żmienna I ventured in sound media and later in television.
A ‘coordinated action plan’ was made with the establishment in 1956 of the Curia press office. We started by briefing the distinguished foreign journalists who came to Malta to cover the integration issue. They all wanted exclusive interviews with the Archbishop, but instead I held perhaps Malta’s first press conference at the Hotel Phoenicia.
The Church in Malta has very limited resources of its own to make its voice heard
The work of the press office, always with meagre resources, continued for the centenary of St Paul’s Shipwreck. We started feeding news to most of the international Catholic and secular press. The voice of the Church was widely heard. RAI television and CBS sent over a team to produce documentaries.
In 1962 I was nominated as the Archbishop’s delegate to the Malta Broadcasting Authority and one of my first proposals was to open a local television station. This I often discussed with the general manager of Rediffusion, who started thinking about the idea. What finally made my dream come true was when the British government started seeing the invasion of Italian television in Maltese homes.
It was during this period when, through Kenneth Brown, CEO of the Broadcasting Authority, I was sent for a nine-month course of training with the BBC.
Every now and then I used to come up with the idea of a Church TV. At one stage, following the success of the weekly programme Djalogu on MTV, we even came up with a plan to open the station at St Agatha’s Convent in Rabat. Alas, the Cathedral Chapter, which was a possible sponsor, did not fork out the money. The Maltese Church lost a possible voice.
In 1974, the Italian bishops called me to Milan as the first director of the International Centre of Family Studies, with the very popular magazine Famiglia Cristiana published by the Society of St Paul. They already had a radio station in Milan and were on the verge of opening Telenova. Here I gave a hand from my experience in London and Malta.
In that period, as my departed friend Fr Peter Serracino Inglott, who also came to Milan, remarked, I was still working as I did in Malta, that is, for the Cana Movement and TV.
I am sorry to recall the past, which I did with the help of the bishops, clergy and laity, but this all serves as an eye-opener for a sin of omission, for the Church never espoused my television dream. Now we lament, but with a wide vision we should cast our nets into the future. Often in the past I wrote about the need for a Church TV and the problem of finance was always used to shelve the project.
I think Pope Francis is teaching us financial management and I am convinced we will find the necessary resources.
The time will come when our island will become more and more secularised. Then, quite rightly, our bishops will complain that the Church has no voice. With courage and vision let us establish a local socio-religious TV, like many other Catholic groups have in various dioceses.
In the meantime I continue to hope that the late Bishop Nikol Cauchi was right when he said: “The time will come when we will have a Church-run television station.”
Mgr Charles Vella is the founder of the Cana Movement.