Respect is earned and not gained. As a convinced Hegelian I feel more Christian than the Archbishop, who has no monopoly over the meaning and substance of Christianity and Catholicism. The Archbishop is not stupid. He’s probably one of the smartest and brightest minds on the Islands. That doesn’t mean he is automatically entitles to any respect whatsoever.
I would have kept silent about the Archbishops protest on the Olympics Opening Ceremony had Archbishop Charles Scicluna fulfilled his role as a Christian leader honourably and to the full extent. To me his behaviour is extremely suspect at best, damning and grievous from a clear and objective perspective.
Charles Scicluna became Archbishop of Malta in 2015 as a result of a coup against his predecessor Paul Cremona. The coup was lead by the hardline conservatives like Joe Borg and Rene Camilleri who wanted a more outspoken Archbishop on politics. Pope Benedict XVI gave the hardliners one of their own, shipped straight out of the Vatican itself: Bishop Charles Scicluna, professor of theology who had worked in the Vatican’s investigation on the Church’s sex abuse scandal.
In the beginning, Archbishop Scicluna was very outspoken about the corruption in politics and even lent his weight and support behind the family of Daphne Caruana Galizia. He also apologised for the Church’s religious war against Labour in the 1960s and asked for forgiveness. For some time, Archbishop Scicluna was marking the Church’s moral footprint in politics.
Then under Robert Abela’s administration, the Archbishop got silent. There were a series of land and public deals in the process of this unfolding silence. Prime Minister Robert Abela seems to be pushing the right buttons with the Archbishop.
That’s not the only thing that bothers me. Archbishop Scicluna’s extensive became extended not only on the government’s misdeeds, but even on some contemporary events that should raise the ire of any Christian leader.
When a local Freemason leader gave a public interview to the Times of Malta, the Archbishop remained silent about this. Simon Cusens and his previous employer are also associated with the Vitals fraud, with his previous employer, Ivan Vassallo being currently one of those charged in court. The phenomenon of Freemasonry exploded under the Labour government with these kind of clubs growing and adding many new members.
The Archbishops silence on this matter is quite telling, and I don’t say this in a conspiratorial way. It’s just that the Archbishop refuses to pick fights with people who have some sort of power while simultaneously becoming increasingly silent on the abuse and criminality by the government.
There’s a very solid and important reason why the Archbishop should come out against Freemasonry, and it’s because Freemasonry, apart from being a dysfunctional symptom of our rent-seeking society, is the closest thing you can get to literal satanism. The spirituality, cult and religion behind Freemason groups is often of an esoteric nature that goes openly and directly against the teachings of the Church.
So, basically, Freemasons aren’t just wrong for having a wrong characteristic and personal trait that goes against religion: such as gay people. From a hardline Augustine perspective gay people have a bad sexuality and should suppress it in order to fulfill God’s wishes of them. Freemasons don’t just have a bad characteristic: they are preaching an esoteric spirituality that is antagonistic to the core teachings of Christianity. From any kind of theological perspective, a gay person can be a good Christian and even a practicing Catholic, but a Freemason can never be a good Christian let alone a practicing Catholic. It’s like saying satanists are welcome in the Church.
Previously, the Church had a strong position against Freemasonry. Archbishop Michael Gonzi had made an agreement with the British Freemasons not to allow any Maltese members in the local lodges – an agreement which the British lodges in Malta adhered to until 1984. Nowadays, Freemasonry seem to have become a freely accepted practice by the Church and there is no pushback against it.
So, what’s all this fuss about gay people when the Archbishop doesn’t have a problem with the promotion and propagation of esoteric bullshit that metaphorically spits in his face? I can answer that, and the answer is that he is a lazy coward by picking up fights that are popular but won’t lead to anything substantial or material in results.
No respect from me with this kind of behaviour. I’ll call the Archbishop, Monsignor, when I see him fighting wolves not queer people. Mister Bovril.
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