'L-Isfida tal-valuri Nsara u l-Partit Nazzjonalista'

Author: Edwin Vassallo

Publisher: PrintIt / 2011

Pages: 98

As I begin to write, all France is agog with expectation of the Pope's apostolic visit this time next month. This expectation extends beyond the highest levels and is also present at the local church level.

The expectation is not just as regards the details of the visit but rather at the spiritual level; what this visit means.

You can feel it at Lourdes which the Pope will visit on the Sunday of his visit but also in smaller, local churches.

Concurrent with this expectation France is also experiencing a resurgence of religious life. After years of decline in attendance, so much that a book by Abbe Godin asked in the immediate post-war years "France, pays de mission?" this year has seen a resurgence of baptisms and of the sacraments in general.

You can see this among the young people flocking to the annual Pentecost pilgrimage to Chartres and the young people falling to their knees to receive Communion.

Of course, there is another reason in the background - the coming presidential election, which is by no means a foregone conclusion - a victory for the Far Right or Far Left.

Hovering somewhere there is the querelle of the Pope with President Trump with France backing whoever is at odds with Trump. 

This is how things move. Not on the initiative of a single person, however well-intentioned he might be.

This slim book by former Parliamentary Secretary Edwin Vassallo does not aim to substitute for an entire movement of people. It is a collection of articles (unfortunately not dated or given a context) urging the Nationalist Party to return to its Christian roots.

But Edwin cannot do this on his own. He needs support and backing. There is, out there, a huge demand that the PN moves to the Right or at least the Centre-Right.

The fact that this has not happened and the other fact that Vassallo ended out of the Party shows, to my way of seeing, either that the party rejected Vassallo's advice or that it was premature advice.

I also beg to differ: the PN is not and never was, a confessional party. It did have a strong Christian basis, based on its origin as a party based on Religio et Patria.

But it was never a party bred and based on the sacristy. 

In this, it was more inspired by people like Don Luigi Sturzo than a member of the Catholic Action like Herbert Ganado.

The articles in this slim book are not dated except to say the book was published in 2011.

That, however, brings the date of composition to around the same date as the Rocco Buttiglione crisis years.

Buttiglione came from the old Democrazia Cristiana which had disintegrated following the Mani Pulite corruption crisis.

He was then nominated to be a European Commissioner but he was voted down by a single vote when he condemned homosexuality and said that the family exists so that women could have children and enjoy the protection of the males.

The controversy about his nomination practically destroyed the Commission under José Barroso. Buttiglione was hounded out of office when he had to face allegations of money laundering by a member of his staff.

Vassallo reflects the ugly controversies when Catholicism found itself fighting for its existence.

He then attempts to use the experience of this battle and speeches by hard-line Pope Benedict for the benefit of the Nationalist Party both when it was in power and when in Opposition.

A former member of the Christian Doctrine Society (MUSEUM), a shopkeeper in his native Mosta, and later its mayor, he was elected to Parliament in 1996 and served as parliamentary secretary until 2022 when he was not returned. 

He felt the Party had let him down especially in the way it conducted the divorce campaign and memorably he was the only MP to vote against same sex marriage and left it, creating a political organisation sui generis.

The book predates some of these later developments in Vassallo's life but is a worthy example of a man with principles who refused to tailor his views to court popularity.

At the same time, I think, and this is my personal opinion, his way is not the right way that the Nationalist Party needs to go to if it wants to be returned to power in the future.

I admit that, while we continue to hear the revelations emerging from the current jury trial, there is widespread dismay at the sorry spectacle of a non-responsive party in Opposition, whose leader seems to have time only for "mejda tal-qubbajd" type of village politics. 

But that does not mean the party should follow Vassallo's advice.