‘Puritan’ is not a label that one would generally give to contemporary society. Puritanism was a movement of reform in 16th- and 17th-century Britain which sought to purify society from the remnants of Catholicism. This seems to be light years away from the situation in which we live and one would need to stretch one’s imagination beyond breaking point in order to associate Puritanism with contemporary society.

Or perhaps not. Although appearances may suggest otherwise, we live in a Puritan society.

As its name suggests, Puritanism attempts to introduce, by force or persuasion, a state of purity. It endeavours for a ‘pure society’. This is not simply a morally pure society, where everyone does good and avoids evil, but a society purified from all forms of impure philosophies, ideas and practices.

It is a society founded on a monolithic world view that allows no room for diversity. Everyone has to think and behave in the same way and those who dare go against this ideal of purity have to be shut down.

It would be wrong to think that Puritanism is a thing of the past and its place limited to history books. In his 2021 ‘Roger Scruton Lecture’ at the University of Oxford, the English historian and best-selling author Tom Holland suggested that contemporary society has turned into a Puritan society. Surprisingly, the new Puritans are not the conservatives but the liberals.  These new Puritans do not go around dressed in black and white but they see the world in black and white. They see no alternative to their liberal ideals and whoever dares to disagree is quietly, or not so quietly, shut down. Freedom of opinion is proclaimed as a basic principle of liberal society but only on paper.

Concretely, this translates into something more akin to censorship than freedom. Isn’t this cancel culture another form of Puritanism? Indeed, between the old version of Puritanism and the more colourful modern version there is a lot in common.

Malta is, sadly, not immune to this. The present debate about the proposed legal framework on the termination of pregnancies is a case in point. I won’t go into the content of the proposed law; a lot has already been said in that regard. What piques my interest is rather the reaction to what has been said.

Time and time again have we been told that there needs to be a mature debate about abortion. This is the minimum that one would expect from a modern democracy that supposedly values freedom of opinion. But now that we are having this debate, it is not exactly free, open and mature. What we have, instead, is a new wave of Puritanism. And, no, the Puritans in this case are not the conservatives but the liberals.

If some still had doubts about the presence of a cancel culture in Malta, this week should have given them enough evidence to think otherwise.

We have a prime minister who publicly declares that his government respects everyone’s opinion but then, when faced with a solid and well-coordinated pushback by the Maltese episcopate, quickly brings out the interdett card. Perhaps even this time, it would shut the Church’s mouth.

In his reaction to the tabled amendment, the leader of the opposition chose a more conservative stance. Sadly, his arguments were also accompanied by a few avoidable distasteful quips. The spin machine instantly picked up on them. The result: all sense of proportion lost, his entire message written off as an oration to misogyny, which it was not, and the messenger cancelled.

One needs to be a conservative to be a true liberal- Carl Scerri

Cancel culture in Malta is not limited to politics. Members of the ‘Doctors for Choice’ lobby group took aim at the men and women of the cloth who were present at Sunday’s march. Apparently, if you’re a man or woman of the cloth (as long as it’s the monochromatic one), you no longer have the right to air your opinion. You are cancelled.

We might be centuries away from 17th-century Britain but Puritanism is still present. It changed colours, ideals, arguments but the method has remained essentially identical. The dream of a modern liberal society is turning into the dystopia of a monolithic society, where diversity is only allowed as long as it agrees with the liberal canon. If you happen to sing from the ‘wrong’ hymn book, you will be cancelled.

I am not trying to play the victim card here. I am just trying to bring to light the contradictions that we live in, the doublespeak that we are constantly exposed to, the fallacy of a liberal society that tries to wrap us around the finger of its liberal ideals.

Liberalism might appear glittery but it’s not gold. It is the values of democracy that are in grave jeopardy. And, given that Liberalism in Malta is still in its gestation period, using the same yardstick of the new amendment, shouldn’t we just say ‘no’ to this Puritanism? Paradoxically, in the present day and age, one needs to be a conservative to be a true liberal.

Carl Scerri is a priest and DPhil student at the University of Oxford.