Stitching: the state banned what the Catholic Church will not
Malta - the place where people want to recreate a theatre from the 19th century to watch plays from the past
The law suit contesting the ban on the play Stitching, filed by the producers against the state, continues to crawl through the courts.
Interestingly, the priest who chairs the Catholic Church’s film classification board was a witness for the producers against the state. People should be free to watch Stitching, he said, as long as they are over 18. He said that the play had helped him to understand the suffering of those who grieve the loss of a child. He more or less said that rather than banning it, people should be encouraged to watch it because of its useful lessons.
How different this is to the stance taken by the state board of film and stage classification, which banned the play and called it “an insult to human dignity, from beginning to end”.
So now we have this very strange situation wherein the Catholic Church’s censorship board is more open-minded and insightful – more liberal, if you like – than the state’s. The chairman of the state censorship board has banned Stitching. The chairman of the Catholic Church censorship board thinks people should be encouraged to watch it.
Stranger still, the Archbishop’s Curia has thought it best to sit on the fence (and we all know what happens to people who do that, don’t we – they get a fence-post up the nether regions). The comments of the chairman of the Catholic Church’s censorship board, it said, do not reflect the values of the Catholic Church, and the chairman was not speaking in court as the chairman.
Come again? I know that two-hats-no-conflict disease has plagued this island for generations, but there are limits. Fr Abela – for that is his name – remains the same person with the same views whether he is speaking in his official capacity as chairman of the Catholic Church’s censorship board in Malta or as Fr Abela. Or is the Archbishop’s Curia giving us to understand that the chairman of its censorship board is but a puppet, there to take instructions from the archbishop rather than using his own judgement?
Ah, but there’s more. If the Archbishop’s Curia does not agree with its censorship board chairman, then is it going to ban its flock from watching Stitching, perhaps making it a venial sin to do so? No. “Had the Church thought of issuing an official ban, it would have carried out consultations and one of the people it would have consulted is Fr Abela, as chairman of the board,” a spokesman for the Curia said.
Confused? I don’t blame you. “But because we are not going to ban this play, then we are not going to consult anyone,” the spokesman continued.
Living in Malta is so draining. All this godforsaken fuss about the desperate need for a new theatre, and then when a decent play arrives, what do we do? We ban it – while the Curia kvetches in the background, the agents of the state try to beat the pope to heaven, and the legions of liberals in and out of Muscat’s progressive collation of change agree that Bad Things Should Not Be Allowed On Our Stage.
9 Comments Comment
Leave a Comment
Perhaps it would be better had you to verify your facts. You said that the priest who was a witness for the producers “chairs the catholic church’s film classification board”. you should know that this is not the case and this fact was stated clearly by Fr Abela himself on the witness stand.
[Daphne – http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20090624/local/church-neither-in-favour-nor-against-stitching%5D
My first reaction to the report was one of relief: at last, a priest who believes that adults should have the right to decide what to watch or not to watch. The secular board on the other hand, is acting like “morality police” and does not think we are capable of making our own judgement and take responsiblity for our own actions. Very strange – well only in Malta ….
I can confirm what C. Meli said. I know Fr. Abela personally and I know he was once on the Catholic Church Film Classification Board, but I also know that that is no longer the case. The Times seems to have got all wrong.
A never-ending comedy of errors, a Maltese trade mark.
Quote: “The board, being of the Church, is expected to be a voice reflecting the Church’s Christian values for the good of the Maltese; Fr Abela was not reflecting the values upheld by the Church,” the Curia said.
My question: Does the Church/Curia always uphold its (own) values sine qua non?
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20090623/local/curia-distances-itself-from-priests-testimony
From TOM article:
“If the Church thought of issuing an official ban, it would have certainly made its consultations … But, since it did not issue any ban on this play, it did not undertake any consultations,” the (Church) spokesman said.
Classic Catch-22.
Dear Daphne, don’t you think that it’s time to talk about serious business by our government regarding the 4.7% deficit?
[Daphne – No. I’m not in the business of boring people. There are enough men with calculators doing that already. You find the subject fascinating only because you are (1) an accountant, and (2) anti-government. But I have to tell you: even the anti-government people yawn and turn the page when they see the less-than-magic word ‘deficit’. And that’s why the only way Sant could sell it to The People was by calling it a hofra, in much the same way that Mintoff talked about il-kaxxa ta’ Malta and his drop-jawed followers actually thought there was one, possibly stuffed beneath his rancid mattress. Even Joseph Muscat isn’t having much success entertaining his collation of change with talk of the deficit.]
If you think that deficit is not a subject to discuss, think again. The excessive deficit of 4.7% is there and the government has to correct it by not later than end of 2010, orders from EU. Since il-hofra by now has become a barriera and since il-kaxxa ta Malta has long since been thrown to the dogs, there is no other option than for the government to impose on us more and more taxes. Ohhhh
that’s when the people stop yawning and the word deficit will become a household name.
[Daphne – I think you’ll find that most people would rather have jobs, healthcare, education and a deficit than no jobs, barely any healthcare and hardly any education and no deficit. And that’s one of the main reasons your Labour Party was voted out in 1987. As somebody who experienced what should have been the best years of her life in a country without a deficit, I can tell you firmly ‘thanks but no thanks.’ It isn’t possible to have all that and no deficit. There is no country in the civilised west that runs without a deficit. A smaller deficit is a desirable objective – but not when we are in the throes of a recession – but the objective of no deficit is for no-nothings who don’t understand economics.]
We will wait and see who will score right about this subject. More taxes means living leaner, which means less benefits for everyone around. Excuse me, whatever you say about the Labour party, but it WAS a Labour government who started social services, free education, free healthcare and created new industires for the working class.
[Daphne – And which then screwed it all up by denying people their freedom, oppressing them, and trampling on human rights. I’d rather be hungry and free than well-fed and oppressed.]
At times it might not have met the aspirations of certain classes of people but one cannot ignore how it got rid of a lot of poverty that existed at the time.
[Daphne – The way to eradicate poverty is through the creation of work and the raising of the level of education. Poverty was eradicated starting 1987, and that’s also when social mobility began.]
“the agents of the state try to beat the pope to heaven” … Daph, you couldn’t have found a better phrase to sum it all up.
While a section of the population is very quick to condemn people who are ready to come out in public on topics that are still considered taboo, they forget all the unfaithful men/women, paedophiles, murderers, drug dealers etc in their families … So why doesn’t everyone get on with his/her life?
Geeeez this is stressful.