Much has already been written about the Finnish woman married to an Italian who wants the crucifix removed from her children’s classroom in Italy. I have been too busy with First to follow the controversy and I am sure in this evening’s Xarabank, it will all be sorted out – as was Satanism in that witches-brew-of-a-programme which was shown, surprise, surprise, just before the Media Warehouse survey. Leave it to Where’s Everbody? to put Malta to rights!



My immediate reaction to the militant Finnish woman’s objection was: too bad. She should take her children back to her homeland, Finland, so that they will not have ‘a stunted growth’ and be terrified by a crucifix. I believe that ‘when in Rome you do as the Romans do’, especially if you have chosen an Italian as your husband. Too bad if you want your children to have a secular education. She should be fitting into her husband’s culture as so many women do and if she must object, it should be to so many other things which are wrong in Italy and not a crucifix in a classroom.

But does this secularization of society also mean that teachers can’t talk about God or their belief in him at school?; that there cannot be any Christian sign in schools or work places?; that we can no longer refer to a Christmas holiday season, a Christmas break and celebratory events specifically oriented towards Christmas for fear of upsetting the secular lot?

But European countries – and America for that matter – were founded on religion. The most popular religion in the world is Christianity and to be more exact Catholicism. And even if you factor in all the Jews, and Muslims and Buddhists and Hindus and every other religion, Atheists are a very small percentage. So should we deny the majority to make a small minority happy? Should we cut off our nose to spite our face?



The Finnish woman is one of the ‘secular’ lot. Not content with the pace of ‘de-Christianisation’ in Europe and the US, they want to give it a further push.

So instead we are turning to crystals, horoscopes, pyramids and the service of psychics and readers of crystal balls. (When interest is flagging Xarabank run this sort of programme too.)

But Secularism is more reactive than active. Has it been able to promote a vision of a good life independent of religious institutions? No, because people like the Finnish-woman with-the-difficult-name spend their energies fighting Christianity rather than providing us with an answer on how to put meaning in our lives. They have no answers. They simply want everything to be secular.



Let me say at once that I gave up going to church some 20 years ago. I go to family weddings and the very occasional funeral. I get absolutely no consolation from attending mass I am sorry to say. I get a lot more out of talking to a small group of like-minded people and reading all sorts of books hoping to find some answers. So, perhaps rather sadly I am not one of the church brigade. However, I do believe that those countries who have almost given up religion entirely are much worse off than they were when the majority of the population had some kind of religious belief. Faith brings hope. The Church is there essentially for the people who get knocked about in life – which is a great many of us – and give them hope so that they will not give up but keep going. And ‘Man lives, not from day to day but from hope to hope.’ Some are unable to survive without that hope of another life, where all will be fairer. It is this which keeps them going through life’s trials and tribulations. For some it may be the shoe laces of Dun Gorg, others a particular saint, yet others reciting the rosary or going to mass or saying some special prayers. It is wrong to criticize the beliefs of others. I would go further and say: it is very dangerous. You never know how near to giving up hope a person may be… it is best to encourage them to keep on hoping. Somehow optimism works far better than pessimism. And if it is a crucifix in a classroom or wherever that is going to retain our hope then let’s keep it there.



I have lived with crucifixes all my life, as did many of you. They were everywhere at home and at school, on my father’s desk, in our kitchen and bedrooms… How many homes and churches did I enter which seemed to be something out of Dante’s Inferno, all dark with figures swooping and twittering in the gloom, and candles leaving their eerie shadow. But still. One turned to the crucifix and a beloved statue in times of need and felt better for having said a prayer before an exam or when an important decision had to be taken.

But in the early years of our life we do not think deeply about the significance of these things which are embedded in our culture and which we take so much for granted. No matter how gory the crucifix we hardly realized its implications. It is only later, that its deep significance may hit us. Although “Like brothers at play/Doubt and belief,

/Forever teeter-totter within my soul” we are better off with religion than without it.

Having said that: I want to have the cake and eat it. I am all for a clear cut division between Church and State, although here Catholicism is in our Constitution and it can never be that clearcut. As a matter of fact I believe that those priests who are political activists ‘undercover’ should go for a stint to the missions and do some good work in Africa and India and South America, instead of leading a cushy life here writing blogs and generally working hand-in-hand with the Nationalist Party. That is where they are needed most, in some Third World country. Until they are here and active in politics how can we say that Church and State are separate?



Of course, matters are not as dire as when the Church excommunicated you if you voted Labour or belonged to the Labour Party or read a Labour newspaper. We get endless boring mentions of Black Monday but who is writing about those days when no Laburist could get married in a church but only in a sacristy and when you could not be buried in consecrated ground. The Church would not dare give these instructions nowadays. There would be, not a harmless manifestation but a riot on its hands. At least we have come this far.



So I say that even if our beliefs may be shaky and although there is so much hypocrisy let us not allow allow the secular lot to take over as it is doing in other countries. Yes, leave those crucifixes there. They can only be of help and never a hinderance.