Many of Dom Mintoff’s followers counted themselves as Christian and, indeed, followed him because of that.

Edwin Vassallo, the Nationalist MP, has been reported as saying that his party should go back to being the party of Christians in Malta. A true Christian Democrat party. Sounds natural but it’s at complete variance with both Malta’s political history and what the founders of the Christian Democrat movement generally wanted.

I’ll come to the uncontroversial facts in a moment. But let’s first understand why it’s important to get them straight.

The PN is currently debating its identity passionately. In itself, that can be a good thing, a source of renewal and reinvigoration. However, if it characterises itself wrongly – if a misleading self-portrait takes hold of the party’s imagination – the exercise could turn out to be destructive.

It would further detach the party from its historical roots and sources of renewal. Rather than make the party ‘great again’, it would exacerbate some of the grating characteristics that have seen it lose so badly in the last two general elections.

Let’s also remember that debates about identity are never conclusive, whether we’re talking about individuals or groups. Our identities are born out of, and in, relationships with others. Even consistent characters change in response to unfolding circumstances. That’s a sign of strength.

So we shouldn’t expect the debate to end. As long as it’s conducted civilly, and not with a sectarian edge, it’s a good thing. However, the debate should be anchored in actual history.

And what’s the relevant history here?

First, historically the PN hardly had a hold on the Christian vote. How could it?

During the entire colonial period, no Nationalist-supporting prelate ever became archbishop – the governing  powers saw to that. (It’s often forgotten that Mgr Michael Gonzi was a co-founder of the Labour Party.) The early PN leaders were sometimes accused of being anti-clerical.

Of course, the other political parties saw themselves as representing a Christian ethos as well. Up until the end of World War II, ‘Christian democracy’ was not a proper name but an ideal.

‘Christian democracy’, as a term and ideal, is to be found in one of Labour’s founding documents.

After the war, the increasing tensions between the Church hierarchy and Dom Mintoff saw first one party, then another, give itself the mantle of being a Christian workers’ party. But that didn’t mean Mintoff didn’t represent Christians in Malta.

On the contrary, the wounds of those tensions ran so deep – not healed even today in some people’s memories, and still capable of stirring emotional turmoil – precisely because many of Mintoff’s followers counted themselves as Christian and, indeed, followed him because of that.

The numbers polled by the PN in successive general elections suggest a bizarre story if you think of it as the main party of Maltese Christians. From its 18 per cent of the vote in 1947, the PN always increased its percentage share of the vote at every general election up to and including 1992 – even when it lost. It only exceeded the 50 per cent mark for the first time (since 1932) in 1981.

In other words, the PN increased its share of the vote in parallel with the increasing secularisation of society. The more deeply and holistically Christian Malta was, the lower the vote share (generally) of the PN.

The Church, on the other hand, was broad and universal enough to host a wide range of political preferences

You can’t understand this if you think of the PN as the Catholic party of Malta.

I realise that Edwin Vassallo (and others) are making an argument about the future, not just the past. He’s arguing that Labour has abandoned any claim to being the party of ‘Christian values’. Therefore the PN should lay claim to that entire ground.

This argument has already been challenged by the Jesuit priest Alfred Micallef, who has argued that Christian values make up a much longer list than is usually assumed in the Maltese debate, where they are often linked almost exclusively to sexual and reproductive politics.

The founders of the Christian Democratic movement had a similar argument.

When the Italian Partito Popolare was founded (at around the same time as Malta’s Labour Party), Alcide De Gasperi rejected the suggestion that the new party’s name should have ‘Christian’ as part of it.

The Church is universal, he argued, while he and his colleagues were founding a political party. A party is bound to be – as the word goes – partisan; to express, in other words, a preference for some ideals and methods over others.

The Church, on the other hand, was broad and universal enough to host a wide range of political preferences. It is possible to be a coherent Catholic Marxist as well as a coherent Catholic socialist or liberal or conservative.

De Gasperi and friends wanted to be none of those things but something else. Their very Christianity made them recognise that what they wanted was narrower in scope than what the Church stood for.

Their ethics were universalist. But wielding power would require them to prioritise values and take decisions on behalf of some and against others.

They would, in fact, prioritise (in relative terms) fraternity and solidarity over equality and liberty. They would reject both class struggle and radical individualism in favour of a search for the common good.

‘Christian Democracy’, as a name, was only adopted after the war. It was Plan B, you might say. It was adopted as a matter of real politik – a partisan strategy – not as a statement of principle.

Essentially, it was considered the surest way to avert a Communist victory at the polls in Italy – by issuing a rallying cry for all those Christians, conservatives and monarchists, who hadn’t supported the Popular Party before the war.

De Gasperi settled for it. Just as Adenauer settled for a Christian Democratic Union, as name, having decided that a new interconfessional party was needed in Germany to replace the (Catholic) Centre Party he belonged to before the war.

This isn’t the only bit of history you need to know to understand the character of Christian Democracy in Europe. But it helps.

Otherwise, the PN risks importing an Americanised version of Christian politics, while ignoring its own European character.

ranierfsadni@europe.com