Fr Reno Muscat

Once the rumours about the dismissal of the Archbishop of Malta spread not just all over the island but even in Rome, where I was on that day, I tried to follow what was going on in our dioceses, obviously, following Maltese news portals and posts on the social media.

From my point of view there were some irregularities regarding the handling of such a story, mainly from the local Church media.

• The Malta Church portal on Friday 17th October, late in the morning, announced that a press conference regarding Archbishop Paul Cremona, will be held the following day. As far as I know, the dismissal of His Grace was never announced from the Church's media, while all other media was gossiping about Cremona's resignation. Some six hours after this announcement, the same portal, declared that Auxiliary Bishop Monsignor Charles J.Scicluna is expected to lead the local Church until the appointment of a new Archbishop. Seems to me that here the chain is missing a link. Once the Archbishop is the head of the Maltese Church, it was appropriate that the Church's media announces the Archbishop's dismissal, and by doing so, avoiding useless theories.
• Mons Cremona's resignation was officially announced by the Curia during Saturday's press conference. The conference even announced that the Pope has accepted Cremona's resignation. I think that the curia had to call this conference 24 hours earlier. The Maltese prefer to hear such news straight from the horse's mouth. And so it should be.
• It was said that His Grace has been thinking of leaving office for some two year. I think that Mons Cremona was well guided on every step he had to take. So why couldn't the Church in Malta wait for just another week to pronounce the resignation? In a week's time, the Synod would have been over and Bishop Mario Grech would have been back home. (Mgr Grech was in Rome participating in the Bishops' synod on the family) After all, the Bishop of Gozo is the president of the Maltese episcopal conference, and it would have been only fair that the President be involved in such an important press conference. Furthermore, the attention of the Maltese people was diverted. On Saturday 18 October 2014, most Catholics around the world were waiting the report regarding the outcome of the synod, especially hot arguments such as the communion of divorced and remarried persons and the LGBT community. Unfortunately, in Malta everybody was thinking of this resignation.
• Resigning is a courageous step. From my point of view, Mgr Cremona was brave enough to take this step, on his own will, (hopefully) without being forced by anyone, because according to his believes, it was the best he could do in the present situation. Some Maltese, thinking that they are holier than the Almighty, stating posting messages on the social media. Some messages were disgusting, crappy, hideous, shocking. Referring to some priests working in the curia with disrespectful adjectives such as 'snakes' or 'trash' does not really reflect a Christian approach to our neighbours. Whoever wrote such messages must have forgotten Christ's own words: "Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted." (Luke14: 11)

In my opinion these were some irregularities regarding Paul Cremona's resignation, hopefully these were not done by any bad intention.