Pope Francis is a great pontiff. If you don’t believe me, ask Martin Scicluna, a fellow correspondent of this newspaper’s sister who is now urging people to boycott Gasan and the Ta’ Tumas group.
Scicluna has written positively about Pope Francis countless times. In 2013 he wrote that “In Francis there is real cause to hope after his dazzling start that we are at the onset of a Vatican Spring”. He added: “In Francis there is real cause to hope that we could see the Catholic Church turning the corner towards a more democratic, modern and open institution.”
In July 2015, Scicluna described how “charismatic Pope Francis, who has just been greeted ‘like a rock star’ during his tour of Latin America… faces a defining battle over the future of the Church”. While describing this battle, Scicluna paints the usual misinformed scenario of Francis versus Benedict XVI, whom he says “is like a spectre at the feast”.
Though describing himself as “a disinterested observer of the Catholic Church in Malta” (February 2016) he often takes pot shots at her, painting her, like he painted Benedict, as almost the antithesis of Pope Francis.
Following such glowing praise of Francis, one would expect Scicluna to be a fervent follower of the Pope’s teachings. Unfortunately, it turns out that, like many other Maltese (and not just Maltese), he uses Francis as if he is a brand without any content. They say that Pope Francis is great so long as he does not open his mouth and start teaching; then he stinks.
Scicluna parts ways with Francis on, for example, euthanasia.
Bad Pope Francis should do some corner time as penance!
In an op-ed piece penned on August 10 in the Times of Malta, Scicluna describes euthanasia as the “last human right”.
Francis is of a different opinion.
In his latest apostolic exhortation The Joy of Love, Francis speaks of euthanasia and assisted suicide as “serious threats to families worldwide…”.
Some human right, indeed!
Scicluna quips that “helping the terminally ill to die peacefully at a time of their own choosing is not anti-Christian”.
Francis, once more, begs to differ. In a 2014 address to Italian doctors the Pope blasts euthanasia as a sin against God.
Did I hear anyone else say that it is not anti-Christian?
Scicluna soldiers on. He considers euthanasia “in the right circumstances and within tightly-drawn laws” as a representation of “the Christian values of charity, compassion, mercy, dignity and kindness”.
It seems that the Christianity embraced by Pope Francis is defective indeed. He is ignorant of the ‘fact’ that euthanasia is not anti-Christian, as preached by Scicluna. Worse still, he does not even know that killing patients is a representation of Christian charity and compassion. How can a pope be so misinformed? Bad Pope Francis should do some corner time as penance!
Could it be that Francis is showing a shallow knowledge of Christianity when he took exactly the opposite position of Martin Scicluna in a June 2016 address to professionals from Spain and Latin America?
Campassion, says Scicluna.
Compassion my foot, retorts Francis. He calls things by their very name. Euthanasia is “killing a patient”, adding that in a culture that is increasingly “technological and individualistic”, some tend to “hide behind alleged compassion” to justify this killing.
“True compassion does not marginalise, humiliate or exclude, much less celebrate a patient passing away,” the Pope said. “You know well that would mean the triumph of selfishness, of that ‘throwaway culture’ that rejects and despises people who do not meet certain standards of health, beauty or usefulness.”
We are faced with an easy choice indeed: either Pope Francis’s or Martin Scicluna’s Christianity is deficient. No rewards for guessing whose knowledge of Christianity is lacking.
Scicluna continues to distance himself from the teaching of Pope Francis. While Scicluna defends the ‘right’ of those who want to kill a willing patient he is not so generous with the right of Catholics to dissent. In one sentence he deprives Catholics of the right of stating their position under the fig-leaf type of excuse that ours are “the views of the self-righteous and intolerant religious right in Malta”. Consequently the great oracle decrees that “traditional religious beliefs should play no part in the debate on whether or not there should be a law on assisted dying”.
Pope Francis happens – surprise, surprise – to take a different view from Scicluna. He has consistently taken strong views on politics, migration, the environment, good governance, abortion, economics, euthanasia, gender theory, poverty…. You name it, check and find that he spoke about it; whether it is reported by Scicluna and his ilk is another matter. He cares not of being labelled “self-righteous and intolerant” by the likes of Scicluna.
Francis, in his apostolic exhortation The Joy of the Gospel, clearly states that “no one can demand that religion should be relegated to the inner sanctum of personal life, without influence on societal and national life, without concern for the soundness of civil institutions, without a right to offer an opinion on events affecting society”.
And if Scicluna is still adamant to limit the Church’s right to play a part in the national debate, Francis continues to fasten the lid on these distorted ideas. In the same document, Francis insists that the Church has “the right to offer opinions on all that affects people’s lives” and that “it is no longer possible to claim that religion should be restricted to the private sphere and that it exists only to prepare souls for heaven”.
Scicluna and others like him should stop praising the Pope in one instance only to trample on his teaching one second later. To add insult to injury, they misuse the Pope, from whose teaching they dissent, to harass the Church in Malta. This is a pathetic attitude. They are not in line with the Pope, while the Church in Malta, whom they rubbish at every given opportunity, is faithful to the teaching that he declares.
Neither the Pope nor the Church need to take lessons from such people about Christianity.
joseph.borg@um.edu.mt