Those of us who were young in the 1950s and 1960s know the great influence that the Catholic Church played in Maltese society. Many are wondering whether the present leadership of the Church is looking nostalgically at ‘the good old days’ when the Church ruled the roost and wondering whether the mindset that prevailed in that era is indeed worth replicating in today’s troubled world.
Many older people remember how the Church was present in every facet of life in Malta five or six decades ago. Dedicated and well-trained nuns were in charge of hospital wards, secular and religious priests taught thousands of students in various church schools run by religious orders, and churches were packed not just for Sunday Mass but also for practically every religious ceremony held during the week.
The Church was also a very influential institution in the shaping of political strategy – so influential that it conducted a political-religious war for more than a decade to ensure that Maltese society would never forget that Catholicism was ingrained in our psyche. Many still have mixed feelings about the influence that the Church had in their early lives.
While many still cannot understand why the Church behaved in such an obnoxious way in the political field, they also acknowledge that the thousands of priests and nuns who dedicated their lives to help the poor and the sick, to educate the young and to generally be on the side of the most vulnerable in our society, deserve nothing but gratitude and admiration.
The Catholic Church today is once again facing important crossroads. The emergence of red cassocks, church leaders promising to upgrade town and village churches to the status of basilicas, and young clerics proudly donning the paraphernalia of Church power in overheated baroque temples worry those who have a different perception of what the Church should be about in modern people’s lives.
A Church operating in the community of man as a vital force in his spiritual, physical and mental uplift
As Edward Earl Clevland wrote way back in 1969 in Ministry – an international journal for pastors – “The quickest way to kill a church is to institutionalise its ministry”.
While Pope Francis is a breath of fresh air in his attempt to bring to the forefront the social issues that are tormenting our society, some of our church leaders seem to be more interested in the colourful pageantry that may bring solace to those dealing with the concept of their inevitable mortality, than to the thousands of people struggling to find meaning in their fading religious beliefs.
Clevland was very graphical when he wrote that the rider on the white horse of the Apocalypse is pictured as going forth “conquering, and to conquer”. But this does not envision the Church as an instrument of political manipulation nor of a Church dictating political policy to secular government, but it does envision a Church operating in the community of man as a vital force in his spiritual, physical and mental uplift.
The real issues facing today’s European society are the economic troubles that are leaving millions of young people unemployed, massive migration of almost biblical proportions of families leaving their war torn homelands in search of a better life in Europe, and millions of people who are ostracised by the Church they were baptised in because their marriage has broken down and they are denied the right to continue to be practising Catholics because they have decided to form ‘new’ families.
Every Christian religion has one mission: “Go into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.” To do this the Catholic Church cannot go back to the strategy of enhancing its image as an institution, “splendid and moral, sitting as an island of righteousness on a sea of sin”.
All churches have an important role to play in today’s troubled world where political leadership often lacks courage to tackle the real issues that affect people’s lives. Churches should wage war on ignorance, hunger, disease, and filth. The Church cannot afford now to turn inward and simply maintain what it has. It cannot keep living in the past forgetting the harsh realities that the people it serves are facing.
The real jewel in the crown of the Church are the thousands of committed Catholics who are inspired by the mission statement of their faith to help those in need of material or spiritual support. Pope Francis is certainly saying the right things even if sometimes his solutions may seem impractical and naïve. But at least he is setting the right agenda.
johncassarwhite@yahoo.com