Approximately 2,000 years ago, the Bible tells us that the people of these islands got to know about Christ. They accepted his Good News and they adopted it as a roadmap to their lives.
They believed that there was one God who was the creator of all that is seen and unseen. Indirectly most of them believed that they were stewards of this earth. They were to develop and populate this earth at all levels as entrusted to them in the Genesis narrative and other inspired texts. It gave them a vision and an understanding of God’s plan to see them through in their joys and hardships in this life and the afterlife.
They were to have children, create families, develop the earth, especially Malta, and to do all this while giving glory to God, for the love of Christ, for the good of the Church as a community, and the wider society under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
So by the way of justice, love, discipline, piety, endeavour, solidarity, wisdom and forgiveness, they embraced a way of living that had a direction, a morality and an ethical behaviour that guided them over the centuries. In their successes and in their failures they had a purpose to live for. They had a worldly kingdom to usher, a personal kingdom to experience and a kingdom awaiting them in the afterlife.
Many an occupier like the Arabs, the Knights, the French and the British came, but the trail of this philosophy to life persisted. This phenomena was not just local but universal and therefore called Catholic. So much was this Good News and modus operandi enshrined in the ways of our ancestors that in 1964 when self-rule finally was acquired, they tried to secure it in their laws and not just a simple law but a constitutional law.
What our forefathers wrote in the Constitution was that the religion of this country would be the Roman Catholic religion because our allegiance was to the pope in Rome. A free government in the offing had opted, in its majority, to follow this belief.
In all its hierarchal ways, in its allegiance to the pope, in its dogmas, in its respect for the clergy and social and moral teachings, they put it in black and white for generations to come. The Roman Catholic religion was our country’s guidance that would guide us on social justice, peace, law-making, education, family, social coherence and well-being.
So much was this way of living known to everyone and shared that our own Constitution did not even define the meaning of this so-called religion. A religion is not simply a belief in a deity, nor a set of do’s and don’ts or a calendar of feasts and liturgy. It is not just a dishing out of sacraments that guarantee salvation. Our religion is a way of living.
Our Roman Catholic Church with all its faults, abuses and failings is still the institution that tries to turn the evolved, at times aggressive, egoistic, sexually oriented ape into a being that realises its emotions, feelings, and transcendental qualities.
A divinely created being that can build a beautiful sustainable society that shows solidarity with the marginalised and the weak.
Our country is in dire need of people who stand up for altruism, for the common good, who stand for good values
The ape is now wearing suits and skirts, but if it loses the belief and shrugs the understanding of the design of the awesome creator, it reverts to cheating, to promiscuity, to indiscipline, to aggressiveness, to egoism and greed. It makes us and our youngsters devoid of the joy. In turn relying on drugs to overcome our disillusionment were the laws of the jungle, survival of the fittest and might is right dominate.
The society we are living in today although strapped with laws and institutions is showing enormous cracks in its proper functioning. Whether it’s the justice system, the environment, the family, the aesthetics of our town planning, right conduct, democracy and accountability. Each day we are inundated with scandal.
This is not because we have not tried to create checks and balances but because the key human element is failing to live up to the spirit of its incumbency.
Parents are unable to sustain relationships, few really consider the carbon footprint of their way of living. Many are showing an apathy towards a sense of duty in their jobs and commitments while others are just seeking personal gain by the truckload.
In a world where things are changing so fast, we need an institution that can discern the times.
That can look at the holistic picture of our meaning to life. It is not enough to pass on knowledge and work on intelligence in an academic way. It is not enough to look at GDP and wealth.
The Roman Catholic religion and the Church have always been the institution that seeks, works, and speaks for the good of humanity. It has been especially the institution that has tried to make each one of us good citizens.
Our Prime Minister has hinted that the Roman Catholic faith as the religion of our country needs to be discussed. This could mean that article two of our Constitution can be removed or improved. We are after all a secular cosmopolitan State with a variety of religions.
Yet on the other hand, our country is in dire need of people who stand up for altruism, for the common good, who stand for good values, and who can differentiate between what is good and bad according to a creationalist Catholic faith based morality.
To state that the religion of our nation is the Roman Catholic religion is a very vague statement which can be interpreted as discriminatory. But surely what our fathers meant was that the spirit of our nation is one built on Christian values. That our laws, our educational system, our institutions, traditions, social policies, land use, our way of bestowing honours should be based on Christian values.
If changes need to be made to the Constitution let us not remove the Roman Catholic dimension but rather improve on it and strengthen the Church that promotes it.
David Pace O’Shea is an observer, thinker and well-wisher for a better society.