‘Holy Week’ in Malta is ‘religion overkill week’, including in the Times of Malta.

In his write-up on Good Friday processions, Fr Geoffrey Attard wrote that these processions “have gradually been transformed into exhibitions of power, vanity and self-affirmation”. He could have gone one step further and said that these supposedly religious processions have been transformed into spectacles and shows, featuring Roman soldiers dressed to the hilt in fake gold – on the way to a crucifixion – followed by barefoot devotees dragging chains and wearing hoods just like the Ku Klux Klan.

For this reason, there is an “exodus of hundreds of Maltese” to Protestant faith groups because they are angered and scandalised by these so-called “manifestations of faith”. In fact, Protestant Christians discarded these idolatrous exhibitions centuries ago.

The last time I attended a Good Friday procession was at Rabat in 1969. Some friends urged me to go with them. The tedious procession moved very slowly and nothing much took place. Every 15 minutes or so, a kitschy statue, depicting contorted limbs and lachrymose faces, came into view.

I was so bored that I prayed to God: “Please, take me out of this backward country!” And God heard my prayer because, a few months later, I was on my way to a four-year stay in the United States, where ‘Good Friday’ was just another working day.

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