Archbishop Charles Scicluna used his Independence Day homily to tear into the country’s economic model, saying that exploitation of the less fortunate and foreign workers has turned the Maltese from being colonised into colonisers. 

Scicluna also highlighted the benefits fraud scandal, which saw people taking grants meant for those with challenging disabilities when they were not entitled to it, calling it an “act of theft and abuse of sovereignty”, that our forefathers who strove for independence fought hard to achieve.

Celebrating mass at St John’s Co-Cathedral on Thursday, Scicluna said the nation should be ashamed of placing rapid financial gain ahead of values and quality of life, allowing people to live in poor living conditions and on wages that could barely get some through a week, let alone a month. 

“In our pursuit of economic success, have we exploited those whom we have invited into our country to serve our basic needs and subjected them to intolerable conditions that are tantamount to slavery? Have we gone from being the colonised to the colonisers?” Scicluna asked.

“Yes, we are guilty of all these things. And we should feel ashamed.”

Times of Malta has previously highlighted stories of non-EU workers being paid below the minimum wage in some industries and having to live in packed apartments in order to afford rent. 

Not mincing his words, Scicluna said one must never grow complacent about people sleeping on the streets or the large number of people who have become dependent on soup kitchens. Such a reality in an economically wealthy society is “scandalous”, he said, and such situations must never be viewed as normal. 

However, Scicluna continued, we must not make the mistake of viewing the poor as beneficiaries of our care and we must engage in communication with the less fortunate rather than speaking about the poor in vague terms. 

“If we are to take the poor seriously rather than pay lip service to their presence among us, one of our priorities should be to consider how our decisions affect those who are the most vulnerable,” he said.

“Will our decisions end up further burdening the poor and making them more dependent? Or will our decisions create the conditions, structures and opportunities necessary for these brothers and sisters of ours to get back on their feet?”

To bring justice to the poor, he continued, one must not be afraid to question the social, political and economic structures that allow poverty to proliferate in the country. 

“In a wealthy society like ours, poverty should cause us a deep sense of embarrassment. We need to ask why there is poverty around us and why it is increasing,” he said.

“We cannot continue to rely on economic metrics that fail to take into consideration the quality and dignity of life. We cannot allow a climate to persist where the poor are treated with disdain and the foreigners invited into our country to serve us, are despised and insulted under the false guise of nationalism.”

Scicluna said the nation must reflect on whether it is heading in the right direction as it questions the necessity of forging a new economic model for the years to come. While it is not the Church’s role to provide detailed and technical solutions on such matters, he continued, it nonetheless has a duty to encourage a transition from “an economy that kills to an economy of life”. 

“It is imperative for us to ask what kind of life we are providing for those workers who, to cope with their daily lives, have to sacrifice their health and time of rest with their families,” Scicluna said. 

“How comfortable are we with an economy built on the exploitation of our natural environment? What life are we offering thousands of foreign workers who are living in slave-like conditions? Not to mention the dozens of workers who tragically lose their lives or sustain serious injuries on construction sites every year.”

As Malta celebrates Independence Day, he said, one should pray to be freed from the dependence on “idols” that push people towards consuming more and getting tangled into a rat race that crushes human beings. 

“It is only when we are freed from the idols that alienate us that we will be able to follow the road of charity and justice that frees the poor from their misery, and all of us from the bonds of the ‘idols of wealth’ that blind and deafen, and that deprive us of our independence,” he said. 

President George Vella, Opposition leader Bernard Grech and ministers were among those present for the ceremony.

Mass was followed with the country's leaders laying flowers at the foot of the Independence Monument in Floriana.

President George Vella placing flowers at the foot of the monument. Photo: Matthew Mirabelli