Military pilgrimage to Lourdes

The other day, I was watching a documentary showing what goes on at the annual international military pilgrimage to Lourdes.

The International Military Pilgrimage was established in 1946 to promote reconciliation and peace after World War II. 

Ever since, for one weekend in May, Lourdes has become a place of prayer and healing for active-duty military officers and veterans representing more than 40 nations.

Yet, I noticed that, while practically all European countries have a national presence at such pilgrimages, Malta has none, except fleetingly in the occasional presence of the Maltese Association of the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of St John of Jerusalem, of Rhodes and of Malta.

Unless I am missing something, should not the respective authorities consider sending a token presence of a few Armed Forces of Malta personnel to such a wonderful international gathering while effectively promoting Malta as a possible tourist destination?

Mark Said – Msida

A heinous crime

Isabel Stabile’s resilience and persistence in defending and promoting abortion stupefies me but her efforts are like a woman digging in water, as we say in Maltese. And now that gardening has been mentioned, I may also say she does not want to call a spade, a spade.

Abortion is a heinous crime.

St Pope John Paul II’s superb comment on abortion should touch her conscience, even for its clarity and reality. “When a parliament authorises the termination of pregnancy, agreeing to the elimination of the unborn child, it commits a grave abuse against an innocent human being, utterly unable to defend itself. Parliaments which approve and promulgate such laws must be aware that they are exceeding their proper competence and placing themselves in open conflict with God’s law and the law of nature.”

Besides being first-degree murder, abortion is also at odds with the medical profession, whose mission is to save life and not to destroy it. This is crystal-clear.

Once again, she exposed the mess with heaps and piles of guilt, moral decadence and brutal farce associated with these pro-choice people. As P.N. Waggett bemoaned: “The ark of the Lord has fallen into the hands of the Philistines and needs to be brought back on the creaking wagon of the common life”.

John Azzopardi – Żabbar