Support for the Archbishop over the petition calling for his removal has come from an unlikely source: the chair of the Malta Humanist Association, whose motto is ‘Good without God’.
The petition, spread over social media, was prompted by Mgr Scicluna’s retweet of an article on The Shift News drawing parallels between the clientelism created by political parties in Malta and by the Mafia in Sicily and Naples. The petition was started by Josef Caruana, former L-Orizzont editor and now an aide in the Office of the Prime Minister, but has since been removed after the OPM distanced itself from it.
Read: PM aide’s comments against Archbishop ‘not government position'
The humanist association’s chair, Vanessa Farrugia, on Saturday told The Sunday Times of Malta that the Archbishop had every right to speak freely, just as any other citizen did.
“I think the petition is absolute nonsense,” she said, adding that criticising the backlash was not a religious issue.
He is a citizen just like everyone else and we will defend his right to speak out against what he thinks is wrong
She said that while she personally did not see the Archbishop as her own moral leader, she would defend his right to speak out on moral issues nonetheless.
“He is a citizen just like everyone else and we will defend his right to speak out against what he thinks is wrong.”
The petition caused controversy, with many saying that the Archbishop had suffered an unjustified attack for his “dissenting voice”.
Not everyone agrees – and some of those who express discontent over the Archbishop’s action are from inside the Church itself. Speaking to The Sunday Times of Malta on Saturday, Fr Colin Apap feared the tweet could have “undermined the credibility of the Church”.
The retweet, with all its implications, could have prompted part of the population to distance itself from the Church. “If I don’t like the singer, then why would I listen to the song?” he said.
For Fr Apap, the petition was simply “the price to pay” for speaking out.
“Of course the Archbishop has the right to speak, but there are also consequences,” he said.
On the other hand, Joe Borg, a columnist for The Sunday Times of Malta and the chairman of the editorial board of the Church’s news portal and radio station, said Mgr Scicluna should not shy away from condemning corruption.
In a blog post for the Times of Malta he wrote: “When [the Archbishop], like Pope Francis, condemns corruption even by re-tweeting something else someone wrote, then the government cries and lets slip its dogs of war.”
He said the attacks were a clear message that the government was trying to delegitimise the Archbishop and what he stood for.
The Archbishop himself did not speak out after the backlash but a spokesman for the Curia said Mgr Scicluna drew a distinction between the tweets he wrote himself and the ones written by others.
Mgr Scicluna, however, seemed to reference the incident during the ordination of nine priests on Saturday.
“We cannot stop speaking about the things we see and hear,” he told the congregation at St John’s Co-Cathedral. “Do not be afraid of being contradicted but love and forgive others,” he added, asking the priests not to be slaves to mankind but to be servants of God.
Why was the petition going round?
On Good Friday, the Archbishop retweeted an article by online news portal The Shift News called ‘The System We Created’. The article made reference to Roberto Saviano’s bestseller Gomorra and drew parallels between the culture of clientelism found in Malta, created by politicians, and that in Naples, by the Mafia.
Mgr Scicluna’s retweet drew the ire of Labour supporters almost instantly on Twitter. Labour MP Glenn Bedingfield immediately fired back on social media, writing “pity the Archbishop did not give up bashing the government for Lent. That would have been too big a sacrifice”.