It is commonplace for the Church to be at a crossroads, having to make choices and be radical in the spirit of the Gospel. I refer specifically to the APS-HSBC issue, which provides a huge challenge to all of us and demands a bold decision from the Church authorities.
Of course, that will depend on the model of Church we want to project and we are promoting. This, in my opinion, is what makes of the issue a mostly challenging one.
It is a call for the Church in Malta to be bold and radical.
In my theology years long ago, we used to refer to the Second Vatican Council of the 1960s as an unfinished symphony. It was plainly understood that the event meant a sea change in the millennial culture that Christianity stood for. What precisely the Council meant to change was to unfold in the process of time. As we all can imagine and some recall, there were setbacks in this process, reversals and even interruptions.
Unfortunately, the two pontificates of John Paul II and Benedict XVI were more of an interruption in this process.
Joseph Ratzinger, with the blessing of John Paul II, persecuted theologians for more than 25 years before becoming pope. The revolution hailed in the Council was blocked in many of its aspects. Benedict himself, even as pope, was heading the school of thought that the Council was to be seen as continuity, not rupture with the past.
Pope Francis, from his very first day, boldly reconnected with the Council vision and put at the centre the pastoral conversion of the Church without making the culture wars the focus of the Church’s mission.
What is happening in Rome these days with the long synodal process is exactly seeking to implement the vision of the Council, and, in a sense, pressing the reset button for a fresher understanding of Christianity.
This is not what is happening in the mainstream. It is surely not what is happening in Malta. The making of bishops always impacted heavily on the Church’s life and the choice of bishops for 30 whole years throughout the previous two pontificates produced a brand of bishops that today, to say the least, are very uncomfortable with Francis.
In Malta, the betrayal of the Council has now for too long been evident. We too often quote Francis as pope but we hate the way he speaks and how he behaves.
We have in the recent past witnessed the creation of basilicas and collegiate churches, the mass production of canons and monsignors and the constant proliferation of an anti-Conciliar liturgy. It suffices to behold what happens in our parishes with the village festa. This is anachronism at its best. No surprise then that entire generations, and not just adolescents and youths, are put off and literally feel outsiders and homeless in this Church.
This is the context in which I place the APS-HSBC issue. As Church, considering our priorities and the model of Church being promoted across the board, we are surely unprepared to be bold in the face of such a decision. It is no surprise that, in this situation, the powers-that-be are adamant on proceeding with the exercise while ignoring all the internal structures and the institutions within the Church itself meant to help discern and decide wisely.
Joseph Ratzinger, with the blessing of John Paul II, persecuted theologians for more than 25 years before becoming pope- Fr René Camilleri
The Church is entering a most dangerous and risky road. Funnily enough, this is precisely the time when the Church should discern and filter wisely what the financial and economic experts are advising in the regard. The Church is surely tempted to act rationally and logically. But there is a completely different logic that the Church is called to heed at this moment.
Way back in 1967, Pope Paul VI spoke of development and underdevelopment in his landmark letter on The Development of Peoples (Populorum Progressio). It was the time marked by the North-South Brandt Report, a time when the issues of population growth, poverty and underdevelopment made the headlines. The pope wisely warned that we cannot afford to think naively that the richer the developed countries become, the more they will enable the underdeveloped to catch up. Pope Paul bluntly stated that underdevelopment is only the consequence and result of development.
Incidentally, the leader of the recent issue of The Economist (September 21-27) explores precisely ‘How the poor stopped catching up’ and seeks to answer why “the poor world has, in short, experienced a brutal decade”.
It is nonsense and naive to approach the APS-HSBC issue arguing that the Church will thus be having ample possibilities at its disposal to proceed with its mission. This is only a way of putting our conscience at rest.
The market has its laws and rules. And if the Church ventures in these waters, it must bow down to those laws and abide by those rules, irrespective of what it essentially stands for. In this regard, the Church already carries a heavy baggage even in terms of perception. It would be completely myopic to venture down this road letting itself then be governed not by the spirit of the Gospel but by the market dictum.
As Pope Francis had already declared in his programmatic and visionary document The Joy of the Gospel in 2013, “growth in justice requires more than just economic growth”. And further: “A new tyranny is thus born, invisible and often virtual, which unilaterally and relentlessly imposes its own laws and rules. We can no longer trust in the unseen forces and the invisible hand of the market.”
Whether the Church can be bold enough to be radical in its calling at this juncture of time will depend on the model of the Church we want to project. If we still cherish a princely Church, with its own institutions and safeguarding its rights and privileges, then the Gospel will continue to be compromised and the Church will continue to betray what it really stands for.
This will confound further all those who authentically believe that the Gospel still makes sense in such a difficult world, yet feeling completely out of place in a compromised world Church.
Fr René Camilleri is a theologian.