Archbishop Charles J. Scicluna was recently asked what he would do if it were proposed to remove the constitutional declaration that Roman Catholicism is the official religion of Malta. It seems he said he wouldn’t launch a ‘crusade’ (the choice term for fuss when the Church is the topic of conversation).
No fuss? Is that all? Scicluna should be the one vigorously proposing a divorce from the Maltese State.
If the archbishop hasn’t gone that far, it’s because he has certain natural concerns. Disestablishment is not just a matter of what’s in the Constitution. It would mean no vestige of religion in the ceremonial and everyday life of the State.
No more solemn Masses at St John’s on national holidays or right before the investiture of a new president. No send-offs from the cathedral as part of a State funeral – Catholic former presidents will have to depart from their parish churches.
No more crucifixes in government buildings or State class-rooms. But also no more gilt-and-red chairs awaiting the head of State in front of any altar, or reserved front pews for ministers of State.
They will get to sit as ordinary members of the congregation, on a first-come, first-served basis – rather as it was in the early Church, where seating and communion did not reflect the hierarchy in society.
In all this, the archbishop sees great cost: the erosion and loss of a symbolic patrimony in which Maltese society has a share. But perhaps the balance sheet should be examined more closely.
First, on the other side of the ledger, there is the cost of continued establishment.
When the establishment article was included in the Constitution, the Church was still considered a kind of mother to the nation. Now, she’s continually taunted for being interfering, for thinking she’s always right and being always out to spoil the fun.
In other words, the Church has been transfigured into the nation’s mother-in-law. She is the punching bag of columnists who, needing to appear to be brave enough to hit out at the powerful, select the Church as target, knowing they are safe from retaliation.
She is also the target of opportunistic politicians. They take advantage of the establishment of the Church – it gives the ceremonies of State a dignity and solemnity they would not otherwise have – but then use anti-establishment rhetoric when the Church says or does something they don’t like.
The Church gets to be called medieval, even while the State itself is leading the way to a new Middle Ages, with gated fortresses (‘communities’) for the rich, while the poor peasants are driven out of their neighbourhoods so that new, foreign, absentee landlords, with their own banks and private security men, can take their place.
A divorce between Church and State would provoke a movement to infuse the Maltese State with real impersonal authority and dignity
Disestablishment, on the urging of the Church itself, would make the nonsense transparent. A disestablished establishment? Gibberish.
And just try accusing the Church of wanting only to hang on to power, if it volunteers its own withdrawal from the symbolism of the State. Critics will at least have to make the effort to identify what power that would be.
The consequences of disestablishment also need more careful assessment. Yes, the archbishop is right: a certain religious patrimony would be lost. But the loser would not be society or the Church. It would be the State.
Without the solemn Masses and other public liturgies, what would the State have left?
New, secular liturgies and monuments? The record of the Maltese State is of unremitting tackiness and botched protocols. Official celebrations might give the pleasure of a town feast. But they lack gravitas.
Perhaps it’s because we’re not ready to pay for the real thing. The costs of running the Italian office of the President of the Republic exceeds that of any European monarchy, including the British one.
Other countries make do with less. But they still spend rather more than we do, and almost certainly more than Maltese taxpayers, after years of populist politics, are prepared to pay for. Obliging them to pay more is possible, but it won’t win more respect for the State.
The State might hope to revel in the authority of military and police parades on national days. But how can authority be squeezed out of forces that have been treated like a partisan plaything for the rest of the year?
Nor is there much hope that awards handed out on Republic Day will, on their own, generate sufficient dignity for office and State. The longstanding practice of rewarding retiring politicians – no matter how risible (or perverse) their contribution to public life has been – means the entire edifice has been devalued.
As a result, the order of merit looks like a cunning way of getting out of giving the politician a watch. And, given that politicians (as a class) are usually given higher awards than anyone else, it’s a reminder to all men and women of accomplishment that politicians are top of the heap. It’s a salutary lesson in who calls the shots, not in how to command respect.
None of this should be surprising, really. The State has been the victim of Maltese politicians (of some more than others), who have habitually preferred to accumulate the personal power of patronage at the expense of the impersonal power and authority of the State.
The tendency has undermined even the presidency, with incumbents increasingly behaving like politicians, not heads of state, strong-arming the private sector behind the scenes to maximise their personal standing as patrons of charities and NGOs.
If some of this is disguised, it is because State ceremonies still ride on the back of religious liturgies and their elaborate symbolism of transcendent values and ethical service.
Hopefully, a divorce between Church and State would provoke a movement to infuse the Maltese State with real impersonal authority and dignity. Even if that does not take place, however, at least the need would be more sharply apparent.
As for the Church’s patrimony, the archbishop need not worry. Benedict of Nursia showed how Church properties can becoming a living symbol of the common good, schools of conviviality and the arts, even when surrounded by barbarians slashing and burning the landscape.
ranierfsadni@europe.com