Unfazed

Odd to see the interview with Mgr Charles Vella in this newspaper last Sunday kick off with a reference to 'the infamous period of the interdict' in the 1960s. This newspaper did not see it that way at the time, nor did Vella. It was not so strange that the monsignor made short shrift of that phrase. "What we did was right during that moment in history. We had few resources but a great will to safeguard not only the Church as an institution but also values, especially those values which today, unfortunately, are in great crisis." It was easy "nowadays to criticise the events of the past".

What most attracted my attention, however, were Vella's thoughts on such matters as Church and State, marriage, divorce, and sexual morality. He gave me the impression that he was driving forward and reversing at the same time. Any motorist will tell you that this is never the most comfortable way to arrive at your destination.

Examples: it was high time the roles of the Church and the State were clarified. Aren't they? And, "There should not be any twinning between the two - and there still is". Is there? And, the Church cannot stop the State from legislating. But this is precisely what the Archbishop has said, repeatedly. The Church only demands, and has a right, to be a participant in any debate on social-moral-ethical issues. And: "The introduction of divorce doesn't scare me, the same way the introduction of condom-vending machines at University doesn't scare me."

How brave; perhaps had he thought more deeply he would have experienced at least a frisson of fear. A salutary nod in the direction of Malcolm Muggeridge, not a Catholic at the time, still less a priest, is not out of place at this point. On January 14, 1968, when this eminent journalist, broadcaster and author was still wrestling with God and a decade away from conversion to Catholicism, he delivered what was in effect a farewell sermon as rector at the University of Edinburgh service in the High Kirk of St Giles.

Very fazed

It reads, in part: "The students here in this university, as in other universities, are the ultimate beneficiaries under our welfare system. They are supposed to be the spearhead of progress... an elite who will happily and audaciously carry the torch of progress into the glorious future opening before them. Now... there is practically nothing that they could do in a mood of rebelliousness or refusal to accept the ways and values of our run-down, spiritually impoverished way of life, for which I shouldn't feel some degree of sympathy, or at any rate, understanding.

"Yet how infinitely sad; how, in a macabre sort of way, funny, that the form of insubordination takes should be a demand for Pot and Pills; for the tenth-rate sort of escapism and self-indulgence ever known!... All is prepared for a marvellous release of youthful creativity; we await the great works of art, the high-spirited venturing into new fields of perception and understanding - and what do we get? The resort of any old slobbering debauchee anywhere in the world at any time - Dope and Bed."

As rector, Muggeridge felt he could not go along with the students' demand, one that he, as rector, was bound to pass on and recommend. This he refused to do; instead he asked the principal to accept his resignation. I believe this is called principle.

"I want you to believe", he told the students, "that this row... has nothing to do with any puritanical attitudes on my part. I have no belief for abstinence for abstinence's own sake... But I have to say to you this: whatever life is or is not about, it is not to be expressed in terms of drug stupefaction and causal sexual relations. However else we may venture into the unknown, it is not I assure you on the plastic wings of Playboy magazine or psychedelic fancies."

What further shocked him was that not one Catholic voice came out in support, not even that of the chaplain at the University, who eventually became rector! Unlike Vella, Muggeridge was scared because he saw where the counter-culture of pot and pills swirling around Europe and the US would lead. And still the monsignor, who has witnessed for 41 years what Muggeridge so accurately predicted in 1968, declares himself not scared.

Look back, calmly

This is all the more surprising because one of the photographs accompanying the interview shows the untroubled prelate smiling and comfortable in the close proximity of Pope John Paul II. I doubt the latter would have been well pleased with the monsignor's views on two issues he had constantly and consistently preached against: divorce and contraception. He wrote a book on The Theology of the Body and encyclicals on the subjects. Vella questioned none, indeed was as one with the Holy Father - and that in the not too distant past.

But then our man in Milan, for that is how we have come to know him, thinks Bettino Craxi was the cat's whisker. A more colourful whisker was Vella's take on Silvio Berlusconi whose "behaviour hurts the nation... He is branded a gigolo and a playboy, but there is a grey area". Is there, now?

Most regard Berlusconi's adultery during his first marriage, adultery during his second marriage (we need harbour no sympathy for the second woman who lured him away from his first wife) not once, or twice but more than thrice and the number rising, as pretty black and white affairs, so to speak, with not the remotest tinge of grey. "Clearly there is a strategy to ruin him; you might also say Berlusconi is too honest and speaks his mind too much." You might also say, on not unduly deep reflection and without shocking anybody, he is electrifyingly immoral.

But to return to where we were before this parenthesis, the saddest part of all this is that the energetic, one could call him driven, founder of the Cana Movement, held and published very different views on the subject of marriage, divorce and re-marriage in the not too distant past. Articles he had contributed to Il-Ġens over a period of years between 1996 and 2004, were published in book form by the Media Centre - Minn Milan Għal Malta. Three examples will suffice.

"In no way should we lay aside the principles of faith and our Maltese inheritance to imitate other countries, today suffering from the human and social effects of the wounds of divorce and abortion" - February 1, 1997.

"We cannot stand still or play at being diplomats. These days someone told me that we should avoid crusades. I agree. But this does not mean that we should sit pretty. If we do this, we will be guilty of sins of omission. It is our duty to defend, protect and preach the truth. Truth lies in the magisterium of the Church, Mother and Teacher" - April 18, 1997.

"The aim of divorce is against justice, because it goes against the law of the nature of marriage" - February 9, 2002.

More funding needed

A cursory glance at Proġettimpenn's response to the Today Public Policy Institute document would have shown Vella that the Church, through Proġettimpenn, is following his advice and thinking at the time, to the letter.

Let me end by saying that none of this diminishes by one iota the sterling work Vella carried out as head of the Cana Movement; nor does it for a moment minimise the value of his contributions to religious broadcasting in Malta; still less his work abroad. And he cannot be gainsaid when he calls for Cana to be funded more generously, staffed more sufficiently.

That it is not suggests a certain casualness, unintended, but a casualness for all that, on the part of the Church in its approach to the provision of marriage preparation courses, for follow-ups once a marriage takes place and for qualified counselling well before a marriage heads towards the rocks.

For its courses to be more comprehensive, for an outreach to parishes and the creation of better communications between parish priests and the movement, there is a compelling need of a quantitive and qualitative increase in Cana's professional staff and services.

Its funding, which is around €66,000 annually, is nothing less than paltry. One way forward is to set aside one Sunday Mass collection and to pass the proceeds on to Proġettimpenn, of which the Cana Movement is a partner. For Proġettimpenn itself needs funds to invite highly-qualified, high-powered speakers, leaders in their field, to Malta to share their views, experience and knowledge on the subject of marriage and the family, divorce and cohabitation, to name but four.

The Church must resist the temptation of procrastination that often assails it; not least because this is an unaffordable luxury.