Gentlemen’s clubs and Facebook relationships are facets of a “butterfly culture” that propagates emotional poverty, Gozo Bishop Mario Grech said.
In a homily that he delivered last Friday in an open air manifestation at Marsalforn, the bishop said that love had come to mean physical gratification without commitment.
“Some argue love has become a Baci Perugina, enjoying the feeling of opening it up, savouring it and becoming emotional at the paper message, only for this to disappear the instant it is over,” Mgr Grech said.
This has led to fragile relationships being formed that dissolve the moment there is no more personal gain to be made, he added, likening them to a butterfly that flutters from one flower to another.
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This was true not only for marriage but also for relationships at work, in sport, politics and culture, he said.
Mgr Grech said social media helped fuel a virtual society where relationships started and ended by an SMS, a chat or a copy and paste on Facebook.
“There is a moral and legal responsibility in using these modern-day tools that can harm people as much as they can help them,” he said.
Fragile relationships dissolve the moment there is no more personal gain to be made
Gentlemen’s clubs and organised prostitution were other facets of what Mgr Grech described as “fluid love” – a term borrowed from the sociologist Zygmunt Bauman.
“Today prostitution is not confined to certain zones but exists in residential areas, but what concerns me is not just the moral aspect of this phenomenon but the abuse of the people involved in it,” the bishop said.
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He also reflected on what he labelled the “dictatorship of consumerism”, which dictated that cars, fridges, clothes, mobile phones and other goods be thrown away and replaced by new ones. “This philosophy is also being adopted towards people.”
Mgr Grech said the State could address material poverty by providing social services but it could not tackle the “cancer of fluid love”, which is why people needed someone who truly loved them.
“This is the contribution Christianity gives us, because it is based on the truth that God is love,” Mgr Grech said.