Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1479276
maltatoday | SUNDAY • 27 MARCH 2022 OPINION 3 LETTERS & EDITORIAL maltatoday | SUNDAY • 18 SEPTEMBER 2022 Mikiel Galea Letters & Clarifications Priestly hypocrisy A Maltese parish priest is alleged to have nearly spent €150,000 of pa- rishioners' money on pornographic websites that provide live sex shows by performing artists against a fee. It is understood that this went on for several years. Meanwhile, the parish priest was preaching morality and virtue to his parishioners, and hearing con- fidential confessions from men and women of all ages concerning their sex lives. After the exposure of such priestly hypocrisy, and the sexual abuse by Catholic priests of boys and young men, one has to be naive, desperate or insecure to cling to the myths and fables that were inculcated by Catho- lic priests in childhood. John Guillaumier St Julian's Open letter to council candidates IN 1903 the British government re- voked a constitution that gave the Mal- tese elected members a majority in the Council of Government and replaced it with a constitution where the elected members were in a minority. It was a powerless Council of Government and the Maltese elected members had no authority to influence politics in their country. Fortunato Mizzi described this constitution as a farce and so it should be treated as such. And so, after every election, all the newly elected Councillors resigned in protest so that the British, and the rest of the free world, would know that the country that presented itself as the 'mother of parliaments' was not wor- thy of such a title and that the elected members will not accept to be part of a council that was a council only in name. In one year, five elections took place and each time the newly elected mem- bers resigned immediately. In 1921, the British granted the Mal- tese a self-government. On 14 September the Ħal Qormi Lo- cal Council issued a statement in which it claimed that the Planning Authority informed it about a meeting on the issu- ing of a permit to develop agricultural land at 3:10pm when the meeting had started at 3pm! Gżira's major claimed that he found out about the develop- ment of a petrol pump in a public gar- den only by accident! In the last few years, we have heard how the Local Council's jurisdiction has been reduced gradually. Many council- lors in different local councils complain that as a council they are not informed of work that is going to be carried out in their locality and only get to know when it is too late. When residents raise an issue with the local councillors, their most com- mon reply is that, as a council, they no longer have any authority over that matter, and they can only pass on the complaint to a government authority. Many councillors do their utmost but there needs to be a common stand by all councillors so that the haemorrhage of Local Council authority is stopped. Dear local councillors and prospective councillors. Are you ready to put prin- ciple before prestige? Are you ready to follow in the footsteps of the 1903 politi- cians and refuse to be part of a farce? Take part in the elections for Local Councils if you have at heart the best for your locality, but never accept to be trodden on. You have to be supportive of each other. Unless you're happy to be toothless councillors, serving only as customer care to pass on complaints and gloat from the fact that you have a reserved front row seat for the annual festa con- cert, Councillors in every Local Council should resign en masse whenever they are flagrantly ignored as is happening, so that the message is crystal clear. Will we have politicians of the calibre of those of 1903 that were ready to forget their partisan loyalty and personal glo- ry, and all together take a stand against someone that was ridiculing them? If not, whoever is ready to be part of a farce, must be ready to be laughed at. Henry-Franz Gauci Qormi