Martin Scicluna has remembered me (TMID, 21 September). There must have been something I had written which sounded not well in his ears and was sour to his taste. He says that he “had hoped not to return to the subject of the Maltese church.” I am afraid he was hoping for something very difficult.
Mr Scicluna has not failed to give us various negative remarks for those he disagrees with. For him the church has an “ill-judged involvement in a political issue”, but has he proved to us that the “issue” was really “political”? An article of mine in The Times was a “perverse verdict” and “expressed in fractured language”. My remarks consequent to a letter of mine addressed to the Cardinal Secretary of State were “pathetic”. The thoughts expressed by me “are indicative of the very mind-set which my earlier articles on the need of the church to eschew self-pity and denial if the ever-due process of its renaissance is to begin after the debacle of the divorce referendum campaign”. My “verdict” on the divorce referendum campaign…was disloyal to the Archbishop, but has he proved why it was “disloyal”? “Like Hitler”, I issued a “perverse verdict!” He made my “verdict on the divorce referendum campaign” enter in his sentence “prompting me to ask what kind of promotion system operates in our church,” perhaps seeing in it something which speaks not well of my “promotion” in the church, evidently I know not what “promotion” of mine he has in mind! For Mr Scicluna others are “bigots” and “blinkered” ones! Am I right if I state that Mr Scicluna would also have such heads as Mgr Said Pullicino’s and Mgr Gouder’s roll off? According to Mr Scicluna, the Curia should “remove those (elderly) Monsignors…and introduce younger priests into the top posts of the Curia.” Does this mean that Mr Scicluna would also see the introduction of “younger” minds “into the top posts ”of the Government of Malta? Is Mr Scicluna against the age-worn adage saying that “old heads grow not on young shoulders?” I believe he himself is not that “young” and that he knows the French saying les jeunes veulent conseiller les vieux!
At the same time, while others are of this make and so utterly incapable of being helpful to the church, it is quite different with Mr Scicluna himself. He is a man capable of writing articles which “recommend a number of steps which the Maltese church could take”…I am sure he does not want to dictate to the church different ways from those “dictated” by Christ! Today it is most common to come across pretentious heads dictating courses contrary to those “dictated” by Our Lord!
I abstain from commenting on the “suggestions” made by Mr Scicluna to the Church. But I fail not to note that Church-State relations have been very clearly taught by such Pontiffs as Blessed Pius IX, Leo XIII and St Pius X. We would do well to stick to their teachings, remembering that States, no less than individual persons, are also God’s creatures and hence subject to His laws. As for compensation in the well-known case of the “victims”, I agree with Mr Scicluna when, as in an article in The Times, he says that this is a “moral” issue. But, at the same time, not only do I note that this “morality” is essentially based on “responsibility”, but I also, in the wake of such writers as friend Lino Spiteri, fail not to note that money should not come in at all. Nor, in my opinion, does Mr Scicluna’s phrase “as has been done elsewhere” add any weight to the question! I laud the Maltese church for having helped financially the committee fighting for the maintenance of God’s sacred laws on the occasion of the referendum campaign on divorce. Anything wrong in helping your soldiers in their fight to save God’s laws?!
As far as I know and remember, never have I mentioned Mr Scicluna adversely in my writings. Never, even when I disagreed with what he said. I am sorry he behaved differently with me.
Nevertheless do write, friend Scicluna. Only I would suggest keeping in mind what you admit as valid in the above. If you prefer to discard this, you are of course at liberty to do so. I believe that I have been as prudent as you expect and I am sure not a word of offence appears in the above.
Mgr Dr Anton Gauci