The US Ambassador to Malta, Somers Farkas has taken her post and presented her letters of credentials to the President Myriam Spiteri Debono. To announce her arrival, she published a photo of herself praying at Rabat’s Church with the US flag printed on her sweater. She also took a photo at Saint Paul’s Grotto, also, kneeling down and praying.
There are many interesting things going on here. Firstly, Somers Farkas’ mistake in how she choose to present herself in Malta is owed due to the fact that President Donald Trump gutted the State Department by firing more than 1000 employees, and many of these employees were very competent bureaucrats. President Trump is also replacing career-diplomats with his friends and Somers Farkas is President Trump’s friend. Obviously, having no experience in the world of politics and diplomacy, these friends of his are continuously making a lot of gaffes (across the world).
You don’t see Maltese politicians uploading photos on social media of themselves praying – and this is because as a country which is overwhelmingly Catholic, these acts are considered tacky, boisterous and even grit-like. Not the same in the US. Indeed, in the US, Christianity and its various denominations, including Catholicism, are mostly used as a political vehicle with Christianity being more about the political views of conservatives of the day rather than a religion bound to traditional actual Christian principles such as humility. The Americans also have their own versions of Catholicism which differ from the actual teachings of the Vatican. On the other hand, Evangelical denominations are mostly outright fraudulent operations in which anyone can say and believe whatever they like – most of them are just businesses.
Lately, in the US there has been a resurgence of Christian discourse in the media driven by political pundits supporting President Trump who went to great efforts to project Christianity as a religion, which is in line with Republican politics. In reality, the political parties in Europe that are blindly supporting President Trump and his bullying of Europe and Ukraine are the far-right with the traditional Christian-Democrats overwhelmingly supporting Europe and Ukraine. You don’t see Chancellor Friedrich Merz, the leader of the German Christian-Democrat (the biggest Christian political party in Europe) posting photos of himself, kneeling down and praying for peace, because in Europe such behaviour is frowned upon and considered as patronising and even offensive.
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