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3 LETTERS & EDITORIAL maltatoday | SUNDAY • 4 APRIL 2021 Mikiel Galea Letters & Clarifications Malta's dark hour "THE hour will come when he that kills you will believe he is worshipping God" (John, 16:2). This verse from St John's Gospel aptly describes the tribulations Maltese Christians are undergoing at the present time. For the second consecutive time, Maltese Christians have again been de- nied what is theirs by right, namely the freedom of organised worship and the liberty to practice their religion. Malta is the only state in Europe where churches have been closed to the faithful wishing to commemorate and celebrate that which is dearest to them, namely the Passion, Death and Resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Do not, for one minute believe that the State is to blame for this drastic ac- tion. No indeed, this initiative is the sole responsibility of the personal initiative taken by Archbishop Charles Scicluna following a decision he made without consulting anybody. So much for the culture of the "Listening Church" he urged us to remember in his Lenten Pastoral Letter. When it came to trans- lating words into actions, the decision was based on the archbishop's sole opinion, and nobody else's. We know this for a fact, as the arch- bishop himself announced that such a decision was his alone, whilst broad- casting his message in front of Senglea's image of Christ the Redeemer. On that occasion he stated that the religious rite is not important. Which begs the question: If the rite is unimportant, why did the archbishop go in front of a mi- raculous image, one in which our fore- fathers always believed in the sacred rite in front of such a venerable image over the centuries? How could the Archbish- op make such statements when Our Blessed Lord's healing miracles were all based on tangible rites that He Himself conducted prior to healing the unfortu- nates who came to Him? Prior to your episcopal consecration, another Curia monsignor, namely An- ton Gouder, who wanted to cruelly end external festivities during the village festa, issued a complex document, that mercifully remained gathering dust. He was scandalized by the sight of shirtless young men enjoying themselves during the prime of their lives during the festa band marches. Your Excellency has, however, done much worse by your actions. You closed all our churches and denied the faithful the graces of the functions inside our churches for the titular feasts that are most dear to them, such as Christ the Redeemer, St Joseph – ironically in the Josephian year, the Annunciation, Our Lady of Sorrows, Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter Sunday and the Feast of the Divine Mercy. And all this in the name of a humanistic "mercy" shrewdly masked as Christian love for the vulnerable members of the faithful. Mgr Gouder was wrong in the deci- sion that he took, but at least he had the guts to state that the reason for his de- cision was due to his lack of agreement with the way the festa external activities were conducted. He was wrong, albeit sincere in his convictions. On the other hand, your Excellency is wrong as well as not being sincere, in view of the fact that your elimination of all external penitential processions and internal liturgical functions was based on the unjustified excuse that these could advance the COVID-19 pandemic amongst us, something that not even the freemasons and the communists managed to do – namely the immediate closure of all churches. Instead of encouraging your sheep to prayer and penance by the graces given through the sacraments during these ugly times in which we live, you instead abandoned them to the wolves. That is precisely what the Archbishop of Milan, Saint Charles Borromeo did during the plague that afflicted his city in 1576. That plague was far worse than this pandemic, but that archbishop, a saint of the holy Church showed moral courage and leadership, recognising that the spiritual health of the soul came first and foremost. Which explains why the faithful of Milan followed him in his public witness against the plague. Just one photo reveals the failure of Charles Scicluna episcopate. One man bravely knelt in prayer on the doorstep of a closed church during the feast of Our Lady of Sorrows. Two young men pass by him indifferently in an empty street except for a pigeon. Both are ignoring his Grace, the believer by performing an action of faith and not staying glued to a screen watching Scicluna. The others are like most of the Maltese – they just don't care about religion any more and that means the bishops as well. His Grace has successfully alienated both from the institutionalised Church! This is the extent of the gravity of this dark hour Malta is passing through. Why do we marvel at this country's institutional crisis when the spiritual sickness in our souls is much worse? In this year dedicated to Saint Joseph, son of David, may God show mercy upon us if we fervently pray to Him. Fr David Muscat Mosta