Endangered by a degraded society which abandons the person to the stratagems of money spinning, the mind must defend itself at all costs by upholding its rights and its essential pre-eminence.  A mind that is soiled attempts to hold truth bound. It not only scorns rationality but reason itself.

This is the feeling I got when I attentively listened to the speeches delivered at the Mediterranean Conference Centre during the official inauguration of the Maltese presidency of the EU council.  This event occurred in the Sacra Infermeria where centuries ago Knights Hospitalliers, whose eight pointed cross evoke the beatitudes preached by Christ, put those values into practice through care of the sick, poor and injured in obedience to Christ. This was and is their highest noble calling.

The Sacra Infermeria was the pride of Europe and it is the place where all knights, the grandmaster included, despite their notorious human failings were obliged to personally administer to the sick.  Despite their decadence the Order understood that the control of the sense is an essential requirement of peace and order in the human society.   This can only be achieved by belief in ideals and supernatural love and this subjection depends upon the latter.

The grave flaw in Joseph Muscat’s government mindset consists in the effort to control life by what is presented to be practical reason and simultaneously abandoning humans to the machinations of greed and opulence.   Muscat asked what was the point of having faith in order to deal with real problems of hunger?  His was a classical Freudian slip that reveals the depravity of his state of mind.

In what was the pride of Europe, the Holy Infirmary, the Prime Minister pompously said to Donald Tusk and Jean-Claude Juncker that realism and pragmatism should be Europe’s guide.  He even dared to prophesise that his vision will be long-lasting, beyond Malta’s six- month tenure.

The truth is that by dismissing idealism and exalting what he calls realism he not only reverses the scale of values that are the basis of humane civilisation but he unleashes all the crude appetites of modern Machiavelli that is causing a deep crisis in Europe and ruining our planet.

Real politicians believe that the subordination of politics to ethics must be absolute

A few days ago the local bishops with other Christian representatives urged our leaders not to forget Europe’s ideals that accompanied its genesis.  But in his speech Muscat exalted Machiavellian pragmatism marginalising the principles of the spirit and idealism from political social life and putting us and Europeans at the mercy of covetousness and merciless capitalism.

Any sort of temporal work from enacting of laws, raising of taxes to treaties among nations,  that may come into connection with the good of souls must be guided by idealism.   However Muscat’s dichotomy of realism to idealism in practice means the supremacy of profit.  For him greed must not be resisted and every spiritual solution must fade into the background.

In this world view citizens are divided between the two extremes of the flesh and the spirit or in Muscat’s words faith.   Is this not again the Pauline’s conflict between pure human materialism and divine supernatural life?

Donald Tusk’s speech highlighted the Acts of the Apostles narration of the shipwreck of the father of the Maltese nation the Apostle Paul.  Tusk mentioned a historical event of kindness and warmth to foreigners by our ancestors is repeated here and now in a real event.

This is the realism that humans of all time desire and unlike Muscat’s realism it is not split from idealism. The Bible reveals how Adam shattered love and reason.  Christ re-established both by divine grace effused through the Holy Spirit.

Tusk quoted from the Bible and his realism is similar to the knights’ philanthropy in the Holy Infirmary that was appropriated by another pragmatist for the exclusive use of French troops only four days after their arrival in Malta and the civilian patients were cleared out.

The silver utensils caught Napoleon’s eyes and were seized with other treasures.  Pragmatism yet again like the Panama accounts opened few days after Muscat won the election.

Thank God for Eddie Fenech Adami and Lawrence Gonzi who were real politicians who put Malta back on the map of Europe.   Alfred Sant another pragmatist expelled me from the Malta Labour Party because I believed in Europe’s ideals.

These are the real politicians who believe that the subordination of politics to ethics must be absolute and infinite because it is based on the subordination of ends.

Muscat’s discourse was vulgar Machiavellianism vested in sophistry.

Ivan Bartolo is mayor of Mosta and a Nationalist Party election candidate.