The banner headline in today's Times of Malta is this: "Church doesn't have to take a central role."
This was said by the Apostolic Administrator Bishop Charles Scicluna in response to the President Marie-Louis Coleiro Preca's Republic Day comment in her main speech that the Church was "no longer central to Maltese Society."
Sad, sad, sad. The role of the Church is to guide and inform the State. Without Catholicism, any States becomes rudderless and will soon be ruined on the rocks of socialism, (most Catholics here do not get that socialism is wrong and dangerous), and secularism. To denigrate the role of the Church in Malta is to acknowledge the death of a culture, of a unique civilization.
The bishop tried to gloss over the statement by saying that a light illumines a room if it is in a corner, as well as in the middle of the room. False analogy.
Without Catholicism, the one true religion, societies fall quickly into relativism, subjectivism, selfishness, greed, and all the other capital sins.
If Christ is not the center of social and political life, chaos follows.
Already, Malta has legalized same-sex marriage and divorce. Pro-abortion legislation is just a matter of time, as most of the non-Muslims here contracept.
I am disappointed in Bishop Scicluna's reponse. He should have challenged the president head-on. Catholics do not need to ameliorate deceit and evil. He should have made a much stronger statement. Without strong, masculine, aggressive clergy at the top of the hierarchy, Catholicism will fade away, disappear, and churches will close.
Malta will no longer be Malta.
Of what are these churchmen afraid?