From Fr R. Soler SJ
As his name implies, Musicus loves music in all its higher expressions. He is terribly saddened and upset when some of his friends, whom he otherwise respects for their balanced, forceful and intelligent views, hold forth in “dogmatic” fashion and in a clearly emotional and particularly unrestrained manner, about classical music and opera – which they (wrongly!) see as absolutely meaningless in today’s world – nay, in Marxist terms, they actually see classical music and opera as potentially very significant “alienating” factors in society, insofar as they “distract” people from the flesh-and-blood “struggles” they should be concerned with! Musicus feels that if his friends do not appreciate classical music and opera, they should keep their inner feelings and thoughts to themselves rather than pontificate publicly – and very emotionally – about something they cannot even begin to understand.
This “parable” may help members of the self-styled “Preca minority” to appreciate why religious believers felt outrage at the three (!) pages of Daphne Caruana Galizia’s piece on religion (TMIS, 24 June). Somewhat similar to the case of Musicus, here we have someone talking about an aesthetic experience without understanding what that experience is about. As in previous correspondence on the subject, here again we had a choral representation of Preca minority prejudice let loose on Christian believers in Malta – expressed not in the rational terms the said minority professes to be proud of, but in the type of disrespectful, “labelling” language that is certainly far from being of the dispassionate type that one would associate with rational criticism.
Obviously there was a struggle in Ms Caruana Galizia’s soul in putting together this piece: on the one hand here was the journalist trying to fall over backwards to give space to e-mails from religious believers she could not be expected to agree with – on the other hand, there was the leader of the Preca minority gleefully putting together the bulk of e-mails received from like-minded “minority” people.
A cursory glance at the full e-mail of a young Catholic believer, a university student who is a member of a prayer-group, convinced me that your intelligent journalist had been somewhat less than fair in selecting what to quote and what to omit from his e-mail: she did quote from his e-mail, true, but in such a way as to “portare acqua al proprio mulino” (strenghten one’s own argument, which in this case is clearly the Preca minority one).
In the three-page splash, there was also a disproportionate number of “minority” e-mails – giving the impression that the minority had maximised its share of the vote. Furthermore, on all three pages the “box” clearly conveyed the passionate anti-Christianity thesis of the minority (aspiring to become, in due course, a majority).
There was a time when ridicule of religion in public had led most believers to be reluctantly and almost unavoidably silent: if they did respond, Catholics were immediately (and often still are) branded as religious “bigots”, “fundamentalists” and what have you! The normally very attentive minority must be waking up to the fact that the majority has decided not to take this situation lying down any longer. The long-suffering, rational, balanced, unbigoted religious centre has decided to present its case anew in a forcible but dispassionate manner – as a corollary, religion-bashing is now frowned upon and will from time to time get the treatment, as and when necessary.
The minority can hardly be expected to applaud when it sees a Catholic faith that does justice – with the Church itself as a body so prominent in the care and defence of immigrants – hardly an issue divorced from Maltese reality! The same minority will conveniently ignore the tsunami of charitable social action let loose worldwide by a Mother Teresa (just to take one example only, because there are in truth many others).
Because the Catholic faith is to strive to do justice (and in spite of any shortcomings in this respect), five Jesuits could meaningfully join the public environmental protest against the rape of Ramla l-Hamra last week. The Jesuits’ participation had a theological basis; like all Catholics, the Jesuits who took part believe in the value of God’s creation and in our common human responsibility towards creation and towards all people, who are God’s children (including the human beings belonging to future generations). Through the Incarnation, the Lord Jesus too had entered the nitty-gritty of life to save our world, in such a way that all – apart from sin – that “promotes” integral human growth is in fact an expression of the hope given us in
the mystery of God-made-man: Emmanuel!
One last word about the prayer-groups that so puzzle Ms Caruana Galizia. Rather than attempting unsuccessfully to explain them away in some sociological manner, she should face the simple fact that people go to prayer-groups to seek an experience of prayer! And “prayer is a way of life which allows you to find a stillness in the midst of the world where you open your hands to God’s promises and find hope for yourself, your neighbour and your world” (Henri J.M.Nouwen, in his masterpiece With Open Hands, 1972).
If only that Preca minority would respectfully sit back and watch attentively, putting aside pre-conceived ideas – along the lines envisaged by Musicus!
Robert Soler
MSIDA