Quick, redeem those Gozitans
The spate of news stories over the last few years involving horrible murders in Gozo and other tales of amorality seem to have spurred the Curia into organising a crack team to save the islanders’ imperilled souls. Picture the scene at HQ after news broke of the gang rape of a 15-year-old: “That’s it. We can’t carry on like this – men throwing their wives off cliffs, wardens stabbed by a woman with an old man for a sex slave and an imbecilic brother for Lm200, this man getting shot by his son for keeping his family as slaves for 30 years, porn videos involving village school-girls, that US scandal with that bloody bugger Fr Mercieca, some guy wearing a carnival mask to kill and rob his own aunt, some old woman murdered and thrown down a well, that lawyer ambushed and killed….”. “To say nothing of the sheep-shagging, sir – not that I know anything about that personally, of course. It’s just rumour.” “And now they’re gang-raping schoolgirls.” “Would you rather they gang-raped a goat, then?” “Hmmm, now that poses a moral conundrum. I would say both are bad, but the former is much worse.”
From The Times, yesterday
Missionaries to spread the Good News in GozoThe Gozitan Diocese yesterday launched its 2008-2009 Diocesan Mission, which will be held in celebration of the Pauline Year. The mission will last the entire forthcoming pastoral year and will start at the beginning of next month. The theme chosen for the mission, which will mainly target Gozitan families, was extracted from the second letter of St Paul to the Corinthians, L-Imħabba ta’ Kristu Ssuqna – Christ’s love guides us.
The mission will be divided into four phases. The first will be a formation period, in which the lay people will undergo eight weeks of training and preparation prior to becoming “missionaries”, together with priests and other religious people. The second phase is one of mission and announcement, which commences shortly before the Epiphany. Here, a large number of house-visits in parishes will be held, where two missionaries at a time will go and spread the Good News.
The third phase, which falls directly during the Lenten period, will be one of conversion and celebration. This is a period of spiritual exercises, prayer, penance and almsgiving. This phase will further consolidate the work done by the missionaries during the second phase. The last phase will reach its apex during Easter, where the mystery of death and the resurrection of Christ are celebrated. This phase is one of thanksgiving and proposals, where the work done by the missionaries will be renewed.
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Reply to rene Click here to cancel reply
Redeem yourself Daphne. The Catholic Church was the first institution that provided social services to the Elderly,the poor,the parentless children,etc. YOU the rich walked awawy like the Pharisee in the New Testment.
[Daphne – Do you wear a sandwich board in your spare time, and stand on street corners telling us that the end of the world is nigh? Irrespective of the accuracy of your point – and it was religious institutions of all kinds, everywhere in Europe, that provided basic ‘social services’ before the arrival of the concept of the welfare state – providing charity for the poor is a whole lot different to what I’m talking about here, which is the inculcation of a work culture rather than a dependency culture.]
John: “You the rich”, eh? What motivated that comment – the envy of the little man?
The one thing that anyone can learn from comment boards is how many people lack self awareness.
I cannot understand John’s comment to be sincere.
What does he mean with “YOU the rich walked away…”? Is he perhaps referring to those who aren’t anymore narrow-minded and that can see things as in reality they are? No, seriously, I cannot get what he is trying to imply.
What does helping people in the past (perhaps today too) has to do with the subject treated in Daphne’s piece?
John:
The roman emperor Nerva started, as far as I know, the world’s first welfare program and there had been many moral teachers far before Jesus that mentioned the need for increase in altruism.
I’m not sure what your whole point is. Even though they had been the first, which I strongly doubt, what difference does that make? I completely fail to see what you are getting at.
It is true that as an institution, the church provided social services long before the governemnets thought about the issues, but it is also true that the church is made up of people, and that these people do at times err.
here you are going in unchartered territory where nobody has ever gone testing 2000 years(maybe 900 )of faith and culture mmmmmm
[Daphne – What?]
I feel that all of you above are drifting away from the whole idea of this post. I believe that Daphne shouldn’t be making fun of such an attempt. All of us at 1 point or another criticise the world we live in for not having so much Good in it, well this is clearly a step that is being taken. Agreeing or not with its functions, its aim is definitly that of doing some good. You listing all those atrocities should definitly point out that something needs to be done.
Who knows what would have happened if someone got in touch with a particular family and managed to solve a particular matter before something awful happened? Wouldn’t that be enough to justify such an action by the church? There is a quote i like alot and it deserves to be put in this context.
We must all fear evil man, but there is another kind of evil that we must fear most, and that is the indifference of good men. Do not criticise those who try to do something, as useless as you might conceive it to be, its definitly better then doing nothing.
[Daphne – It’s not religious evangelisation that introverted Gozitan society needs, but opening up so as to avoid the perversions and amorality that breed like bacteria in such an oppressive situation.]
And who are you to say that this is not what is needed?
Who are you to condemn this before it has even taken place?
and finally
Why do you stand so against such a thing, when nothing else seems to be happening?
Even if 1 family was to come closer to each other by this ‘mission’ I would consider it, in my own little world, to have been a success.
[Daphne – A typical example of Catholic reasoning – read my earlier post about God providing. Rule 1 of the Catholic culture rule-book is never to question, never to challenge, and never, ever to inquire. Who am I? A citizen of this country, with as many rights as the bishop.]
John you bloody putz, god doesn’t exist. Why the fork do you have to refer to a book, written 2000 years ago, to make a point? That alone illustrates what little a point you have.
Oh and what’s with labelling people as “YOU the rich”? Didn’t you know that you shouldn’t judge anyone, according to your bible? Dumbarse.
[Daphne – A typical example of Catholic reasoning – read my earlier post about God providing. Rule 1 of the Catholic culture rule-book is never to question, never to challenge, and never, ever to inquire. Who am I? A citizen of this country, with as many rights as the bishop.]
DAK INT TGHIDU. Kemm ihallsuk talli tghid hekk?
[Daphne – Min ihallasni, Vladimir? Il-kaxxier tal-Knisja Anglikana? U jahasra….]
“rene Sunday, 28 September 1316hrs
here you are going in unchartered territory where nobody has ever gone testing 2000 years(maybe 900 )of faith and culture mmmmmm”
Martin Luther, move over.
“[Daphne – Do you wear a sandwich board in your spare time, and stand on street corners telling us that the end of the world is nigh? Irrespective of the accuracy of your point – and it was religious institutions of all kinds, everywhere in Europe, that provided basic ‘social services’ before the arrival of the concept of the welfare state – providing charity for the poor is a whole lot different to what I’m talking about here, which is the inculcation of a work culture rather than a dependency culture.] ”
Do you actually get paid for writing this hilarious stuff?
[Daphne – No, it’s a hobby. I do it for fun. Fortunately, my fun is not a selfish pursuit, so it’s fun for others as well.]
Corinne Vella Sunday, 28 September 1143hrs
John: “You the rich”, eh? What motivated that comment – the envy of the little man?
The one thing that anyone can learn from comment boards is how many people lack self awareness.
Speaking from personal experience now, arent you? Stick to wring about ethnic recipes with bananas and black pudding in TASTE mag.
[Daphne – And you can stick to the forums preferred by right-wing dick-heads like yourself, Vladimir. Corinne is in China, helping run the press centre of the current meeting of the World Economic Forum, a position for which you are unlikely to qualify. Black pudding is not an ethnic recipe. It is a blood sausage produced in every European country where pigs are slaughtered and their blood preserved, including Malta, where it is called mazzita. I have various suggestions as to what you can do with a banana, and believe me, it’s not an ethnic recipe.]
@ John
it was the church in Gozo that was responsible for creating such a an insular society in the first place, this is what may have lead to such perverse bhaviour. If the Catholic church wants to improve Gozitan society then maybe it should withdraw its troops from this island, rather than infest the island with missionaries in order to “convert and celebrate”.
[Daphne – I was impressed by the way Gozo defended that pervert Fr Mercieca when he was all over the US news.]
Eh Daphne ma tafx x’ghidu l’ghawdxin.. “min he** mexa u min ma hx*** inhe** ” ..u jghiduilek with a smile ta..min Dun’s sa Sur’s ..u jemmnuha !
Viva il missioni..x’ghandhom x’jitilfu..flus sgur li le…insomma ticcpisa sebgha bajda hawn u l’ohra hemm..rajt ma rajtx u smajt ma smajtx ..amen.
It’s goat-shagging. This is Malta, not Wales.
[Daphne – They have sheep in Gozo. That’s what those scraggy things are.]
Yes, but the only case that ever came up before the courts involved a goat, unless I’m very much mistaken. The defendant’s (very short) speech lives on in legal legend.
Daphne – These links speak volumes:
http://www.bishop-accountability.org/assign/Mercieca_Anthony.htm
http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061019/NEWS/610190725
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15343608/ (Click on the link there to hear the voice-recording of Fr Mercieca)
This link quotes an article you had written yourself about the case:
http://www.bishop-accountability.org/news2006/09_10/2006_10_29_Galizia_ComeOn.htm
This link mentions a Fr Anthony Mercieca who is a missionary in Guatemala (number 85 on the list). It would be nice if the Curia could clarify whether or not this is the same Fr Mercieca involved in the scandal, or whether it is just an unfortunate coincidence that the man bears the same name:
http://www.missionfund.org.mt/index.php?pid=3&sid=29
According to this link, however, Fr Mercieca is a “diocesian priest living in Gozo”:
gozodiocese.org/clergy/gozopriests/
With a history like that, should he really still be a priest? Unfortunately, with him still being seemingly officially accepted as one – being listed on the Gozo diocesian website – a shadow is cast on the rest of the church.
What I mean is that the man has admitted to certain things which are not even acceptable had they come from an adult who is not a priest when involving a child, making the fact that they came from a man who is a priest a whole lot worse. You really can’t take such people seriously.
At least the other priests I know of who decided that celibacy was not for them (one of whom was a rector when I was in sixth form) had the good grace to leave the priesthood. (Though it would have been far better had they left the priesthood prior to breaking their vows of celibacy!)
‘Corinne is in China, helping run the press centre of the current meeting of the World Economic Forum’
Good luck Corinne! and keep away from chinese milk and sweets. I remember you going off to the UK (?) for studies some years back and am happy to see you making great strides!!
My wife is Gozitan … and she told me – no she promised me – that she and her brothers have never as much as kept a lamb (or kid) as a pet, let alone as “a bit on the side” …
So i guess that puts paid to any vicious rumours that ALL Gozitans love goats and sheep ;)
[Daphne – We won’t believe you until you prove that you don’t have cloven hooves.]
You expect me, of all people, to have hooves? It’s not like I’ve never stated on which side of the fence I *ahem* flourish … but anyway … I’ve got a pitching fork if that’s of any use.
@ Amanda Mallia. In the last bit of your post above you state ‘priests I know of who decided that celibacy was not for them had the good grace to leave the priesthood’.
What you mention in your post is not an issue of celibacy but one of abuse of a non-consenting minor. Had the priest had a sexual relationship with a consenting adult, be it female or male, it would go against the vows taken but definitely not a crime. What is mentioned in the links is a crime.
Folks I do not need any advise how to answer to Daphne’s piece. I answer in my own way.The one who said that he does not believe in God he may have forgot that the Bible is the most read book in the WORLD. Corinne Vella can rest assured that I envy nobody but the parable in the most read book in the world about Lazarus is TRUE.
I again call upon Daphne to be a good girl with her pen “u ma tarax biss it-tibna u thalli t-travi tad-dinja relattivista jkommplu jaghmlu herba mill-familji.
[Daphne – John, I wrote a piece recently about how Maltese women are trained from birth to be ‘good girls’ and not step out of line. We all have our own interpretation of what makes a good girl. Mine is this.]
@ Zizzu – have you ever found a pair of velcro gloves at your in-laws’?
[Daphne – Issa…..]
And now they’re gang-raping schoolgirls.” “Would you rather they gang-raped a goat, then?” “Hmmm, now that poses a moral conundrum. I would say both are bad, but the former is much worse.”
i think what’s worse is not being able to report it. a schoolgirl could later on.
[Daphne – Yesterday’s newspaper reports indicate that it wasn’t a gang-rape but a case of them having sex with her over several months. Or, to put it in the vernacular, which really sums up the attitude: kienu juzawha ghas-sess, sex being seen as a bodily ‘need’ in the class of eating and defecating.]
hekk kienu l ghajdut mill bidu li kienu ilhom imorru maghha ghal dawn l ahhar xhur
Ronnie – You’re absolutely right. It’s only now, after re-reading my post (which I wrote in the evening when pretty tired) that I realise how my message came across.
In no way did I mean to put the two cases (paedophile priests and other non-celibate (though non-paedophile) priests)on a par.
My point was that you cannot have faith in the priesthood, if people such as Fr Mercieca (who has himself admitted to certain immoral behaviour with a minor) remain priests of their own volition, and – worse still – are so openly accepted by the powers-that-be of the church/Curia, and are not “dis-robed”.
The sad thing is, as I said, it reflects badly on the rest of the clergy, which is a pity. (I can’t bring myself to take the church seriously, for example, when someone who used to hear confession at Sixth Form, who lectured us about all sorts of unacceptable / immoral behaviour, who was oh-so-nerdy when I was 17 … created a child around 10/15 years later (when in his 60s) with a woman in her 20s (as rumour had it, when he was still a priest).
That is the gist of it. Yes, the cases mentioned in the links about the Gozitan priest are about a crime, but my point was that (apart from it being a crime), it is cases such as these which tend to put the church in a bad light. Somebody like that – whether proven guilty or not, whether the case was time-barred or not – should not remain a priest. His “telephone interview” is enough to show that.
@ Amanda Mallia
QUOTE
(I can’t bring myself to take the church seriously, for example, when someone who used to hear confession at Sixth Form, who lectured us about all sorts of unacceptable / immoral behaviour, who was oh-so-nerdy when I was 17 … created a child around 10/15 years later (when in his 60s) with a woman in her 20s (as rumour had it, when he was still a priest).
UNQUOTE
It is a case of this priest not preaching what he preached, granted. But is it logical (forget “fair”) that a few men’s and women’s – (let’s drag the nuns into it, for good measure) mistakes (or crimes in some cases) brand a whole group of people?
Is it logical to say that you can’t trust doctors because of what Harold Shipman (and others) did? Or that you can’t trust accountants because of the Enron business? The list goes on …
There are going to be undesirable elements in any group/society/organisation. If anything, the undesirable element should remind us of the good work the “good guys” do.
John:
“The one who said that he does not believe in God he may have forgot that the Bible is the most read book in the WORLD.”
Yes and Danielle Steels novels are best sellers, Titanic had one of the largest cinema audiences of all times and David Hasselhof manages to sell platinum in Germany.
Would it be rude of me to ask someone to translate the bit in Maltese at the end?
People who really lives in God’s way are at peace with themseleves. Otherwise we feel a void in ourselves.
To recap:
“Redeem yourself Daphne. The Catholic Church was the first institution that provided social services to the Elderly,the poor,the parentless children,etc. YOU the rich walked awawy like the Pharisee in the New Testment.”
This was already proven wrong, but no follow up was offered by you.
“The one who said that he does not believe in God he may have forgot that the Bible is the most read book in the WORLD.”
This I answered to as well. Did you know that the book with the second highest print run in history is the Collected Sayings of Chairman Mao? Does that mean that Mao Tse Tung is second only to God?
“Corinne Vella can rest assured that I envy nobody but the parable in the most read book in the world about Lazarus is TRUE.”
No it’s not. See, I can make assertions too. Now we can turn this into a Monty Python sketch and go “Yes it is”, “not it isn’t”, “Yes it is”, “No it isn’t” for a couple of days if you want.
If you want to assert something, back it up.
As christoper Hitchens so eloquently put it “What has been asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence”.
Pat – About the parable of Lazurus You have a clear picture in front of your eyes the American finincial breakdown. The rich – the fatt cats – the Chief Executives got away with it and the poor worker is in dulldums. And how arrogant are you to say that I brought no evidence.
About the Book. The Cina of Mao’s desire is gone but the Christian Churches are here to stay especially THE CATHOLIC CHURCH.
@ John:
The parable of Lazarus ends with both men dying, and the beggar “receiving his reward in the afterlife, in Abraham’s bosom at the everlasting banquet”, while the rich man “craved a drop of water from Lazarus’ finger to cool his tongue, as he was tormented with fire”.
If in the “American financial breakdown” the Chief Executives got away with it, then the parable has a completely opposite ending.
Regarding the “Christian churces” and the “Catholic church” being “here to stay”, this does not prove anything. What if Fundamentalist Muslims kill all Christians? Would this mean that Christianity is false?
Us Gozitans are proud to be – Gozitans!
John:
The Catholic Church have been losing power in a constant rate during the last four centuries. There is no reason to believe that is going to change. Now I don’t believe we will ever see a complete riddance of the church, especially not in either of our lifetimes, but my point was as you seemed to think the bible is somehow magical due to the vastness of it, my “parable” with the Collected Sayings of Chairman Mao should put that book in the same light, by your reasoning.
And yes, I do consider your arguments to be completely void of evidence. Call me arrogant, I just don’t care, it’s still true.
Vladimir：
It’s kind of you to offer professional advice, but I’m not inclined to take any from a bloodsucker who can’t spell and who hides inadequacy behind a pseudonym. You sound like another of those “I don’t read her scribblings” types, when you clearly do, so maybe you’re just suffering from a bad case of ring sting because of the only spice in your life。
Try one of those bananas you mentioned – it can cure both problems, though it can’t do much about the problems in your psyche.
Mario P: Thank you, but it takes more than formal study to be able to do what I do. Vladimir knows that, hence the envy of the little man.
Kenneth Cassar – Maybee I mentioned a wrong example – but what I wished to be meant was that the poor are always in the dulldrums because of the greed of fatt cats.
Pat – Yes you are arrogant because you think you are an intellectual,which you are not.
John:
You are really sinking into sandbox arguments now. Have I ever claimed myself to be an intellectual? I simply rebutted your arguments, as is appopriate in a discussion and you resort to calling me arrogant (first for claiming you have no evidence and then for supposedly pretending to be an intellectual).
Also, you still have not provided a single piece evidence for your previous assertions, so if you feel I’m arrogant for pointing that out, then so be it.
John: If you’re going to make wild assertions, then state your standard. I assume you do not class yourself among the world’s “rich”, though some of the poor you mention would think that you are.
“Rich” and “poor” are relative terms. Some of the ‘poor workers’ you say are victims of the financial fallout could qualify as fat cats, even when compared to some CEOs here in Malta and elsewhere.
Not all poor people are victims of someone other than themselves and not all rich people are unfairly wealthy or indifferent to the poor.
Oh, and another thing – some of the most effective schemes set up to lift people out of poverty were initiated and financed by the wealthy.