The front page of The Independent on Sunday of 28 August carried a damning complaint by MP Philip Mifsud (Nationalist Party) about the dubious and exclusive selection for entry into church schools. I think the Hon. MP is not the only one in Malta who holds the same opinion on the subject.
The whole article seems strange, considering that it is coming from a member of a political party that had crusaded, and still does, in favour of church schools. The MP should show us his full confidence in the PN administration in the public education sector by sending his son to a state school. It is not the end of world that, maybe, his son will be attending an inclusive state school. There, along with an exemplary Catholic family upbringing, the boy will be enriched with the experience of growing up among young men and women coming from different walks of life with whom he will be living and working with in the future. A true Catholic in every sense and proof of it. This is the right background for a future Catholic politician.
Mr Mifsud said he was spiritually disappointed that his son was not admitted to a church greenhouse. When is the Church in Malta going to put an end to this ever-increasing mass hysteria about Church schools? Is there a numerus clausus of children who want a Catholic education? Are we after making our children special rather than Catholics? Does the Church in Malta realise that it is being used and abused? What guarantees has the Church that it is not producing dumb Pinocchios or ruthless antagonists? Are children being baptized so that when the time comes they are referred to as Catholics and qualify to take part in the lottery draw for entry into church schools?
Is this a tragic farce where we are increasingly losing them young rather then getting them young? How and when is the Church going to get back the unwanted? Maybe, later on, when the Church is seeking and facing God in the inmates at the Corradino “college”, in alcoholics or in drug addicts. No wonder there is the escalating feeling of hate towards the Church in Malta.
Was the introduction of divorce in Malta a game of tit for tat between the rejects and the Church? These are some questions that are not being given their due attention by the Church.
Indeed, the Church in Malta has quite a number of apologies to consider. Admissions by the clergy to make up for the lack of consideration of other members of the same clergy.
Our respected shepherd, the Archbishop and his fine deputies, who incidentally come from another cast of inclusive state education Catholics, are taking the full brunt of the effects of some the grey practices of the Church in Malta. Let us hope that the burden of the Cross the Archbishop might have to assume is not the Church administration itself.
Michael Agius
ST PAUL’S BAY