Today’s young Catholic “pilgrims” fly to Rio and spend a few days at Copacabana, known throughout the world for its hedonism and its shameless exhibition of scandalous thongs and itsy-bitsy bikinis – hardly a sacred site for a papal Mass and a youth pilgrimage!

Among those who flew to Rio was a large contingent of MUSEUM members who, in the days of Dun Gorg, were drawn from the poorer sections of Maltese society and whose female colleagues were conspicuous by their black, burka-like “faldettas” and for their Catholic “scruples”.

In contrast to today’s Catholic globe-trekkers in the guise of pilgrims, devout Catholics in the Middle Ages escaped their humdrum lives by visiting “miracle-working” shrines rather than world-class beaches like Copacabana, or glamorous cities like Rio or Sydney.

Protestant Christianity ditched medieval practices like pilgrimages, scapulars, rosaries, and relics centuries ago because all of these have nothing to do with the teachings of Jesus, nor would have Jesus, whose religion was Judaism, have approved of them at all!

John Guillaumier

ST JULIAN’S