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19 LETTERS & EDITORIAL maltatoday | SUNDAY • 17 FEBRUARY 2019 Mikiel Galea Malta's greatest moment I would not ignore Guillaumier's letter (Paul of Tarsus) because it was pub- lished alongside my letter, and because of its imperfect timing to derogate whatever St Paul stood for on Malta's national day. Just as it was most inop- portune when lately he declared his unbelief in God on Epiphany Day. He wasted a lot of time in posturing over imaginary vacuous platitudes of St Paul and missed his great humility and intimate connection with Malta. 'And lest the greatness of the revelations should puff me up, there was given a thorn for the flesh, a messenger of Satan, to buffet me. Concerning this I thrice besought the Lord that it might leave me. And he said to me "My grace is sufficient for thee, for strength is made perfect in weakness." Cor 2. 12; 7-9 Even before that, St Paul did not take any credit for working so hard and suf- fering for Christ, "For even if I preach the Gospel, I have therein no ground for boosting, since I am under con- straint. For woe to me if I don't preach the gospel." Cor 1. 9; 16-17 And to Malta's good fortune that's what he did. "And he received the words of life to give to us." Acts7; 38. John Azzopardi, Zabbar A pro-choice saint for Catholics AN extremely interesting exchange took place recently in the New York Times on the subject of abortion, which I thought would be a valid contribution to MaltaToday's pages, especially since there have been discus- sions on access to affordable and safe abortion. The exchange started from a con- tribution by an op-ed columnist, Ross Douthat, who complained that America's pro-choice majority in states like New York is also down to the the Catholic Church having become "an institution devastated by attrition, internal division and the sex abuse disaster", where once it was "an effec- tive pro-life political force straddling partisan divides." Of course, describing the Church as a force that straddles partisan divide may be an experience only witnessed in the USA, for as many of us know, the Church has always been an eager accomplice of conservative and right- wing political forces in Europe. But that's not the point here. What is interesting is the response to Douthat by Daniel C. Maguire, a professor emeritus of moral theology at Marquette University: "Ross Douthat speaks as if the Catholic Church's traditional teaching on abortion con- demned all abortions. That is not true," the learned professor started. Indeed, the Dominican theologian St Antoninus (1389-1459) held that early abortions can be justified when neces- sary to save the woman's life, not a rare exception in the medical conditions of the time. "His view created no stir, since there were other notable theo- logians who agreed and allowed for a number of exceptions permitting abor- tion," Prof. Maguire wrote. Interestingly, Antoninus was made Archbishop of Florence in 1446, and lauded by Pope Pius II, in an outstand- ing eulogy on his death, as "a brilliant theologian and popular preacher." In 1523 he was formally canonised as a saint of the Roman Catholic Church! "The Catholic tradition on abortion was pluralistic and not an unnuanced and unsubtle taboo that ignored the moral complexities of reproductive choice," Prof. Maguire said. For all pro-choice Catholics, the feast day of St Antoninus is 10 May. Samuel Portelli, St Paul's Bay Letters & Clarifications