“The justification for the Balzan barbarism mirrored that of the Rabat Road attempted rape and the Paola pillage.” Photo: Matthew Mirabelli

I say, I say, I say: why are the Augustinians like the Labour government? Because they both destroy the environment for the greater good. And why are the Augustinians not like the Labour government? Because at least the government (partly) changed its mind.

In recent days two environmental news items have vied for attention, with the more prominent being the government’s decimation of trees standing in the way of its plans. Government’s boorishness cannot be over-emphasised: in Balzan, two venerable trees and one 300-year-old garden wall were wiped out in two days without a permit. On the Rabat Road, original plans called for hundreds of trees to be cut down or displaced with little chance for recovery. In Paola, the beautiful crown of trees that softened the light and cleaned the air of its central square was summarily eliminated.

To add insult to injury, in the Balzan barbarism, a wall was rebuilt a few metres inwards from the original one, but the road builders did not even have the basic decency to consider whether it was possible to conserve and rebuild the old one. What price another piece of village core memory?

Yet, what was perhaps even more painful was the arrogance of Balzan’s PN mayor. When one of the sorry denuded trunks was replanted in another part of the village, the mayor tweeted the photo as if to say: what was the fuss all about? After all, what is a tree but a biċċa plant, that can be regrown and replaced? How can it ever be as valuable as the houses it will no longer importune with its roots, the cars that will no longer risk crashing into it, the fire-places and barbecues that will ultimately consume it?

The justification for the Balzan barbarism mirrored that of the Rabat Road attempted rape and the Paola pillage: the mammon of progress needed to be propitiated. The trees were in the way: of the houses, the cars, the new roads. They were part of a past that was no longer useful. They were a living memory that had become inconvenient, an odd anachronism.

Their very existence, like awkward exclamation marks, had to be obliterated, for while they lived, they put into question the behaviours that drove their demise. It is not acceptable to question why more roads are being built or re-built to accommodate more private car use. It will not do to ask why government does not put far more energy on the much more difficult task of changing this public behaviour.

The trees were in the way: of the houses, the cars, the new roads. They were part of a past that was no longer useful

So how is the rent agreement that the Augustinians have drawn up with Baystreet Holdings Ltd comparable to government’s attack on trees? The scale of the environmental degradation is not the same, but the justification is similar: both claim that their action is necessary to achieve a greater good. Both consider the environment as a consumable that can be exchanged for something of greater value, because the environmental unit in question is either degraded or replaceable.

Both do not question the environmental contradictions intrinsic in their core assumptions: government’s plans for more roads and smoother traffic will eventually choke us even more. The Augustinians will contribute to the degradation of the environment of their parishioners so that they will have the funds to administer to their souls. 

But at least, government has seen some sense and scaled back some of its plans for Rabat Road. What will the Augustinians do?

Bishop Father Joe

The news that Mgr Joe Galea Curmi has been appointed auxiliary bishop for Malta is welcome indeed. If there ever was a priest with the smell of his sheep, in the words of Pope Francis, it is Father Joe. He takes on this task at a critical time for Malta and the Church here, and not simply because Archbishop Scicluna is busy elsewhere.

In today’s secular Malta, Catholicism is more of a cultural/folkloristic phenomenon than a faith. The threat to the Church is not some anti-clerical onslaught, but the haemorrhaging of its faithful and the racist distortion of its message by some of those who claim to be its followers.

The challenge of the Church in Malta is to speak truth to power without being partisan; but also to build bridges rather than bastions. To opt for the margins even if it means living at the margins. To be merciful and welcoming and not judgemental to those who have lost their way. To walk the environmental talk. To value all life equally, whether floating in amniotic fluid or in the Mediterranean Sea.

It calls for humble, spiritual, astute, listening leadership that reads the signs as well as people’s eyes, and plants new seeds of faith and hope through a new education of the heart and mind. Bishop Father Joe has our prayers.