The interview published a while back in another local Sunday paper, which mentioned among other things the folding up of the local Church’s newspaper, has been at the back of my mind. The weekly Il-Gensillum, heir to its forerunner Il-Gens and the long defunct daily Il-Hajja it seems were not only not sensational enough to make their continued printing viable despite heavy subsidies, but lacked giving readers value for money in supplying information not usually found in other lay newspapers printed in Malta.
In contrast, an acquaintance, who followed with interest part of Monday’s (8 February) Italian TV programme L’Infedele, noted the mention of the Italian Catholic newspaper L’Avenire’s attack on Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was not exactly the epitome of Christian sentiments. A prime minister, to my mind, who has managed to maintain a stable government in Italy where the previous Demo Christians or the leftists had not succeeded for decades. A prime minister who if anything came in for criticism for enacting certain laws in his past legislature which followed very closely Catholic teaching on the sanctity of life, even if these were in part weakened by other Italian players, powerful in a well functioning democracy.
On the other hand, English language Catholic newspapers like The Universe bring to their readers’ attention, with incisive reporting, relief sabotaging effort,s for example in Haiti, by certain “aid donors” without resorting to dubious ploys to increase circulation. The Universe in its pre Pro Life Sunday edition highlighted the masked abortion promotion by the International (so-called) Planned Parenthood Federation on hapless expectant mothers in Haiti who might have lost their husband and who are being “robbed” of the future generation. A “philanthropic” organisation that might state that it is sending aid to Haiti when point of fact it is sending death!
As Malta is now a member of the European Union, we should keep abreast of developments far and near to guard against spillover effects. For example, both The Catholic Times and The Catholic Herald kept readers informed on the evil ramifications of the UK’s Equality Bill if it was made law, thus it was a sign of reason triumphing over ideology that saw its defeat. One of them, which was also reporting a debate on this proposed Bill, did not use the editor’s scissors to put its proponent in the darkest hues possible, and in fact mentioned that one of the champions of this Bill, a Cabinet member in Mr Brown’s government being medically qualified, went to assist an elderly Christian politician who in opposing this legislation over exerted himself and fell to the floor. A far cry from the denigration of a Gozitan cleric a while back in Il-Gensillum!
Finally, I would like to mention that it was worthy of note that in a past edition of another English language (not Standard Publications) daily (27 October 2009), the article on the closing down of the Church’s printing press featured opposite the report about the first attempt at a debate on divorce in Parliament. Despite the Church’s on-line edition perhaps garnering thousand of hits, the demise of the printed version leaves one less publication defending sound Catholic teaching on the unassailability of marriage. Although I must say that I find it astonishing that this Church media platform had and still has among its regular contributors an outspoken pro divorce politician.
Colin Debono
GHAJNSIELEM