Having grown up in the Maltese islands, where processions and feasts are part and parcel of our very culture, the various ways and means of how we express our Catholic faith are familiar to each of us. They are written into our DNA, they are part of our fabric.

As soon as Lent begins and the Church launches this liturgical period with the sober and uplifting liturgy of Ash Wednesday, a certain feeling fills the air. Our churches become haunted with the spirit of organisation; it is as if the quiet figure of Christ Crucified that always dominates our main altars is not enough to help us express our faith. It is as if we want to manifest our faith through less subtle ways. This is where our Mediterranean roots show their strength and vigour.

Having stated the obvious, the question I would like to ask is quite provoking, controversial in its raison d’être, uncomfortable in its nature: does it really make sense to continue holding Good Friday processions?

I have no doubt that the question will not remain a rhetoric one; it might easily instigate a revolution.

Hundreds, if not thousands, of people involved in these ‘manifestations of faith’ will not even like the question being posed in the first place. Many will argue that Catholic Spain and nearby Sicily as well as the faraway Catholic Philippines still cherish their ancient customs, so much so that no one would even dare raise any doubts about them. Delving deeper into the reality of the issue, the question I would like to make is: do these Good Friday processions express our faith or are they merely exhibitions of medieval Catholic culture?

Not that there is anything wrong with expressing one’s culture through processions and religious exhibits. What really counts is: do we still really believe that they express authentic faith? Do they still mirror the inner journey that the soul is entitled to in order to come face to face with the divine?

Good Friday processions have gradually been transformed into exhibitions of power, vanity and self-affirmation

Further into the argument, are these early medieval expressions of Catholic faith still in tune with our modern mentality and secular environments? Do exterior expressions of religion count to ‘spiritualise’ or ‘Christianise’ our laissez-faire society?

Apologists would argue that, without them, society would become more secular or even a-religious but is this really true? Or is it a case of fleeing from the uneasy truth that has encompassed a once truly religious country?

Therefore, the argument is double: how do we go around the fact that these processions do not attract more people to a committed life of faith. Even if this is not so, does this justify the fact that they have become an irony, an old exercise taking place in a profoundly fast-growing profane environment?

A quick search on the internet would make the reader aware that expressionism has been defined as ‘a style of painting, music or drama in which the artist or writer seeks to express the inner world of emotion rather than external reality’. I beg to slightly defer in what I understand by the term in this context.

Once upon a time, our Good Friday processions were the expression of an embedded Catholic faith that identified itself with public manifestations of religion. I am in total agreement with bringing faith to our squares and public spaces, however, do these processions still mirror this faith, a faith that has lost its purity and, in the process, has also lost its appeal to the inner soul of our nation?

As I said earlier, I have grown up with these traditions and it may seem strange for me to criticise them, being so much part of them without having the possibility of choosing otherwise. Nonetheless, I feel, as many others certainly do, that these processions are no longer an expression of faith; they have gradually been transformed into exhibitions of power, vanity and self-affirmation.

The sense of envy that has arisen between different individuals wearing sumptuous costumes and colourful attires and walking around our narrow streets and public spaces as hundreds of other people look at them, some to take a photo, others to talk about them and express their awe at the glittering robes and attractive garb, is not to be underestimated.

In the eighth century, the iconoclast controversy divided the world of Orthodoxy; it became a house divided when both emperor and patriarch ordered the destruction of icons. History – condemned to repeat itself – was destined to experience again the destruction of images and stained glass windows when the English Reformation and Calvinist Switzerland and parts of France brought an end to the cult of images.

In our present age, we will experience no outright condemnation of Good Friday processions and parish titular feasts. What we are experiencing in a quiet and unobserved manner is the exodus of hundreds of Maltese, who, hurt and angered by the propagation of processions, the promotion of costly attires and the expensive regalia that is exhibited without control in these so-called ‘manifestations of faith’ , are leaving the Catholic Church to find a new home in Evangelical communities and Protestant faith-groups.

Our Good Friday and similar processions may be rooted in the fabric of our Maltese society but can we say the same for the living of our faith!