As the drama of Archbishop Charles Scicluna’s admonitions to the politicians continues to unfold, especially after the sermon during the feast of St Matthew delivered at St John’s Co-Cathedral in Valletta, many a Nationalist commentator concluded that the Archbishop is becoming a useful ally to denounce the government’s blatant corruption.
The Nationalists, rather than acknowledging that the Archbishop was addressing them as well to help them recognise human infinite failings and sins and perhaps their refraining from receiving the Lord, have started quoting him to prove they are right and the Prime Minister is wrong. This interpretation would be enough to lead us to reflect.
One cannot blame the Nationalists entirely, for the Archbishop effectively killed and buried Mgr Ġużeppi Mercieca’s and Mgr Pawlu Cremona’s policy of caution. If this is the case, then I’m relieved as well.
If, however, this is because Nationalists subconsciously see the Church as a tool serving their needs, they have no real sense of the Church as that communion of all individuals on a journey toward the heavenly Jerusalem.
The way PN commentators are reacting to the Archbishop’s sermons shows that for them, the Archbishop is not the head of a liturgical community but some kind of brave activist that has the guts to speak. For Labour supporters, the Archbishop is an agent provocateur who uses the pulpit as a soapbox. Both reactions reveal an individualistic Cartesian understanding of the magisterium.
When the rest of us, tired of both political parties, like them start understanding the Church in political terms, we’ll likewise apply that same construction to anything Catholic – from its social teaching to every dogmatic statement.
The Archbishop effectively killed and buried Mgr Ġużeppi Mercieca’s and Mgr Pawlu Cremona’s policy of caution
The truth is that Catholic social teaching is not meant for the advantage of any political party. The Church is a sacrament and thus a sign directing us toward eternal life in Christ and every member of the faithful, Labour and Nationalist alike, through faith and baptism, is inserted into the holy, Catholic and apostolic Church.
He or she belongs to the Maltese Church through the entry into eternal life within the universal Church. The ultimate reason for being a Catholic is to be open to union with God. This union leads to union with that communion, which is called Church. This is the true meaning of the Body of Christ.
This communion means that the seemingly unbridgeable frontier of my ‘I’ is left wide open. Communion means the fusion of existences in the same way my I is assimilated to that of Jesus in the Holy Communion of the Eucharist.
Participating in the Church and adhering to its social teaching, therefore, is meant to be a sacrifice of ourselves just like the sacrifice of the Eucharist. Not only are we assimilated into Christ’s body but we also become one body, for we are all oriented toward the one goal of union with Christ.
The Church is not a celebration of ourselves. Rather, the Church is how we become one flesh with both Christ and also with the community, for it is an anticipation of how we shall be one in heaven even as Christ and his Father are one (John 17, 21).
This is why the original PN founders reiterated religio et patria and not the other way round, patria et religio. I’m first and foremost a baptised Catholic and only after that a patriot. The resurrected Christ secularised the world to destabilise its prince, the evil one that owns all kingdoms
I will not bow to socialist millennialism, deified Europe, eternal reich, banana republic nationalism typified by Malta l-ewwel u qabel kollox nonsense or a queen saved by God. I bow only to Jesus Christ. I’m baptised and free.
Beware of the present PN support of the Archbishop. It not only reveals an individualistic understanding of the Church but also ends up harming it. Catholics in the PN should reorganise themselves under a different banner.
This happened five years ago in Norway when Lutheran Christians left the Christian Democratic Party and reorganised as the Christians Party under the leadership of Erik Selle, gaining 0.6 per cent of the national vote less than 18 months later in the national elections.
Unlike old Maltese Christian Democrats and people like Pawlu Boffa (1890-1962), no present mainstream Maltese political party loves Christ and his Church, and those politicians who do respect it are a very small minority.
We shouldn’t be that startled. Jesus himself said: ‘’When the Son of Man comes will he find faith on earth?’’ (Luke 18, 8).