It has been so unusual, historically, for priests and bishops in Malta to comment about purely secular matters that when they did so in reaction to planning approval for those notorious skyscrapers, we were taken by surprise. And we were also relieved.

I have lived for half a century on this island watching the most prominent members of the Roman Catholic Church stand by while atrocities were committed and corruption escalated. Even in the mid-1980s, when the situation had reached its nadir, the Archbishop and his priests only really got going when the dreadful Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici, Dom Mintoff’s anointed successor as prime minister, began threatening the church-run schools. Then the archbishop entered the fray, addressing large protest congregations outside St John’s Cathedral, encouraging people to fight back, and dovetailing his church’s resistance to the government’s sinister plans with the political opposition to the government itself and to its extraordinary excesses. Far worse things had been happening in Malta until that point, including major assaults on the few surviving elements of the free press and hideous violations of human rights. But the Archbishop never spoke and it was only the occasional renegade priest who did so.

It is easy to see why the Archbishop and his priests were afraid to speak out on what they wrongly thought of as matters which were not their specifically religious concern.

Thirty years ago, the dark shadow of the politico-religious dispute of the 1960s was still a fairly recent memory. Mintoffians were still banging on about the way their antecedents had been excommunicated for their support for Mintoff, and not buried in hallowed ground or allowed to marry in church because of that. And so it was that no matter how terribly the situation deteriorated because of the extreme corruption and violence of the Labour government in the 1970s and 1980s, priests and bishops were afraid to speak out against it, lest they be accused of reviving the contentious disputes of two decades earlier. And of course, those bishops and priests were utterly wrong to keep silent as human rights were violated and newspaper printing presses set on fire. It was a dereliction of duty.

Now, at last, Malta has an archbishop who speaks – nay, tweets – his mind about things that have nothing to do with the narrow concept of religion. And he has encouraged his priests to do the same. It helps that he has a highly secular way with words. The five skyscrapers for which the government has given its approval, Archbishop Scicluna tweeted, are shameless temples to Priapus. Lots of people missed the obscene reference, but those who did not were both amused and in agreement with him.

Then yesterday, the parish priests of Sliema and Balluta – of whom there are four, because Sliema has three parishes (Stella Maris, where I am from and where my parents still live, St Gregory’s and Sacro Cuor) released a joint statement about the “alarming” number of construction projects in their parishes. They were purposely not using the word ‘development’, they said, because it implies progress towards something better, yet this construction does nothing to improve quality of life.

The complaints of people in their parishes, the priests said, are falling on deaf ears and planning approval is issued regardless of how people who actually live there feel about it, and with no “holistic plan” for the area. The “construction frenzy” has caused serious problems for people, with a hostile living environment, heavy demand on infrastructure, psychological stress, damage to homes, environmental pollution, congestion, and many vacant dwellings.

The parish priests of Sliema and Balluta are asking for “reflection” on what the priorities are, and for “protection of the common good without other interests being allowed to dictate and undermine people’s quality of life”. They are also calling for social justice for “ordinary people”.

I am not at all religious, so you may find it odd that I would think it matters so much for the Archbishop and parish priests to speak out about these secular matters. Shouldn’t I object instead and accuse them of interfering in situations which are none of their business? Of course not. Religious leaders are community leaders par excellence, perhaps more so than politicians because they lead the community at a fundamental level from which politicians, by dint of their transient nature, are excluded. Also, we have moved on from the narrow definition of religion as something which concerns only church procedure and the doctrinal rule-book. Social justice is a matter of interest to religious leaders, and so is the suffering of ordinary people for the sole benefit of the rich and greedy. Yes, greed itself is something on which church leaders should pronounce themselves, as is the destruction of neighbourhoods and communities to satisfy that greed. The destruction of a community, and no community has been destroyed with such dogged and violent determination as Sliema’s, is most certainly a matter for religious leaders because where communities are ruined, people suffer from lack of social interaction and support.

Yes, the Archbishop and the parish priests of Sliema and Balluta are right to add their voices to the howls of protest against the greed of the very few to the detriment of the very many. This island sorely needs a conscience.

Incidentally, we really should begin calling those buildings by their proper name: they’re skyscrapers, really.

 

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