On this fifth anniversary of Daphne Caruana Galizia’s assassination, we remember an act of cruel dismemberment that remains palpable among the people in Malta who live shattered in factions. We might even have hoped that long months of “forced retreat” thanks to COVID might have tamed our impulses to viciousness; or that suffering, sickness and death might have humbled us to seek greater purpose in harmony, kindness, or the little things that bring true joy.
Instead, including in the Church in Malta – that longstanding symbol of cultural unity – merely six months after Pope Francis marvelled at the “luminosity” of our islands bathed in “the light of the Gospel”, we see divisions everywhere. And if factions are in the community that claims to believe that all humanity can be “one, holy and universal”, what hope is there for those too cynical to hold such aspirations?
Division in the Church is the worst possible scandal, as recognised since the birth of Christianity. Hence, the episcopate as antidote: one bishop uniting his flock, tracing his line to the apostles, the first witnesses of the kerygma, themselves walking with Peter as first-among-equals. To listen to the bishop, for the pastoral and moral application of the “one faith” in the here-and-now, is the duty of all Catholics as we humbly recognise our fallibility. And still, here we are, living disunity as a crisis of authority.
It is not just vociferous voices on social media calling people “satanic”, that ridicule the pope’s teachings, or are intransigent in pushing political agendas while, through self-righteousness, annihilate possibilities for dialogue. It is not just the blind totemism of band clubs, statues and cults – a pseudo-piety that poisons with its pique (pika) and complex loyalties. As we saw this summer, it is now the actual shattering of communities, gathered in the name of Christ, but who are becoming a symbol of that same crucifixion that we seem so intent on repeating.
It is now the actual shattering of communities, gathered in the name of Christ, who are becoming a symbol of that same crucifixion that we seem so intent on repeating
There are too many examples to mention so I will stick to one where the victims are truly the most vulnerable: a bleeding Church school, that should live its “Catholic ethos” first and foremost through the very community it builds. Instead, almost three months after the sacking its headmaster, we are spectators of a sickening drama, even as we merely consider the diametrically opposed depictions of “the reality behind closed doors”. Smiling Mickey and Minnie faces, while ex-members of staff claim on social media to have left the school reluctantly after 10 or 20 years of service, cannot both be true; but they certainly are conflicting narratives of a tragedy of scandalous division.
Five years after blood cried out for vengeance from the soil of Bidnija; even after tasting death for two years of pandemic, when will we stop the posturing, the pretense and, as Church (if not as a nation), truly live in hope? Maybe when we start by listening: not to the cacophany of voices in our heads or echo chambers, but to the one voice of Christ, and yes – as mediated by the person anointed to interpret it for us, the flock entrusted to him.
Nadia Delicata is episcopal delegate for evangelisation of the Malta archdiocese.