Do they even know what idolatry and blasphemy are?
It is on days like this that I think how Malta might have been better off if it were a Protestant society. What we are seeing is a sort of grand idolatry, and with absolutely no shame about it or any concept that it might be wrong.
Strangely, it seems to be encouraged even by the Maltese outpost of the Roman Catholic Church, which would probably rather let the blasphemy proceed than be accused by Mintoffjani of attacking them and their beloved Mintoff.
Because there’s that confused thinking of theirs again: they hate the Catholic Church but they still want to be part of it and get their ‘rights’ from it, like funeral masses concelebrated by lots of priests and a pit-stop tour by Mintoff’s coffin of various churches with plenty of religious symbolism and people shouting that he was the Saviour.
Now Justyne Caruana has said that her grandfather has a large picture of Dom Mintoff in house, with a votive candle lit beneath it, and he tells her every time she passes by it ‘Trid taghmillu reverenza.”
Do these people known what blasphemy is? Apparently not. For them, access to the trappings of Catholicism is more important than any true understanding of that religion.
Alexander Lucie-Smith has written a good piece about Mintoff for the Catholic Herald. The Mintoffjani have found it already – you know, because they’re regular online readers of the Catholic Herald – and are posting the usual rubbish beneath.
A couple of them are even accusing him of being an alias for me, or having been influenced by ‘that female DCG’. Isn’t it incredible? Sadly, it’s not. It’s entirely credible.
Their comments are farcical and crazy enough when read on Maltese sites. But taken out of that context and posted on the comments-board of The Financial Times and the Catholic Herald, they take on a whole new aspect of rabbit-hole thinking.
On the Catholic Herald’s board, they’re calling Mintoff ‘Malta’s only Saviour’ and can’t understand why regular readers of that newspaper have told them that surely they realise this is blasphemy.
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Utterly stupid people …. no wonder Mintoff wanted to restrict access to tertiary education.
No wonder Mintoff wanted to downsize the University. As poet Thomas Cray rightly said: ‘where ignorance is bliss / ‘Tis folly to be wise’!
My name says it all, but I would like to add… FOXX KEMM ANDEK demla!
Is it ordinary practice for the celebrant priest in a Catholic service to refer to the deceased with titles such as “Perit Duminku Mintoff?” These were the exact words during his stop in yesterday’s tour at the church in Bormla.
I’ve heard that Dom Mintoff was a self-confessed atheist. Do you have any knowledge if this is true or not? And if it is true, why would a Catholic funeral be organised?
To save face.
James Debono said Mintoff created a parallel network to the church’s associations.
I would add, the formation of splinter band clubs. Interestingly enough, mostly named for British royalty and nobility as opposed to the ‘circoli musicali’. This followed Vatican II before the controversy began.
Debono Grech referred to this network including the brigata and these clubs as the place where the children of ostracized laburisti went to for Catholic duttrina.
They mention the ‘mizbla’ as being some rat infested tip where corpses would be thrown on top of each other, when it was a perfectly decent section of the cemetery.
The stigma however, would have been unbearable.
Dom Mintoff knew fully well what these people feared most, being labelled as those destined for eternal damnation. Usurping the axioms and imagery to make himself the Salvatur was a logical step.
Yesterday was planned, I believe, to try to bring to an end the rift with the Church.
I am told that the corpse was taken on visits to churches.
I suppose it is better late than never.
In his lifetime Mintoff was not particulary keen on praying in churches.
It was more lucrative and politically rewarding for him to prey on ignorance and stupidity.
Perpetuating backwardness by dishing out measly handouts was his forte.
I thought circuses were for Christmas.
Another kind of idolatry and please note the giving of another gift.
“Mintoff has often been described as tight-fisted but my own experience was the opposite. For my 35th birthday, he invited me to Delimara, secretly invited my parents, wore a bright checked shirt I had given him, sang “Happy Birthday” and gave me a valuable set of etchings which Aldo Moro had given him. I had to be careful in saying that I liked something he had, since more often than not he would insist on giving it to me.”
The Mintoff that I hugged – timesofmalta.com
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/…/The-Mintoff-that-I-hugged.43415...
The way I feel about Mintoff is clear by now. However, in all honesty, this farce with the tour around Malta, the Cathedral mass celebrated by the Archbishop and the rest of the glitter is not what he would have wanted and total out of sync with his character.
His daughters should never have accepted to have a state funeral. If they really wanted him to rest in peace then they would have spared him the circus and opted for a farewell ceremony at the Labour Headquarters followed by a non-religious burial.
[Daphne – I think they 1. wanted the funeral for free because they are, after all, Mintoff’s daughters, and 2. one of those daughters has an election campaign coming up and this is just perfect publicity for her. Joseph Muscat also seems to think that’s great publicity for Labour.]
Well what that man, wrote was an outhright lie. and as fit for the Catholic Herald as the comments posted underneath. No wonder some people thought it was you or .
As for the idolatry the Church cannot say anything about it now can it. Remember what fuss they made of the Pope, or what fuss they make of the Statues saying they are miraculous, they cry tears of blood.
And why may I ask is calling someone a Saviour is blasphemous? A person who saves something is a saviour, Mintoff saved the workers from people like you.
I’m not very fond of some Catholic priests and their behaviour, but I still believe in God and Jesus Christ, why shouldn’t I go to His house, because I don’t agree with His servants. When I enter a church I neither look at the decorations (unless I’m on a cultural visit) nor at the priest. I go there to pray to God.
In a way you can’t blame them as that is what they inherited and learnt from the Roman Catholic Church of the bloody Spanish and the south of Naples kind ( Spanish influence again).
The baroque and heavy handed damask and gold foil encrusted bloody statue kind that was implemented right after the reformation as “the big show” to impress the stupid and gullible with the inquisition at the ready as the enforcer.
At its core, for the dim wit and the uninitiated, it will always remain all show and no substance.
If you believe blindly and unconditionally in the church you are a poor idiot. As such you see nothing wrong with adoring a man like mintoff
Claire, no one has to “believe blindly and unconditionally in the church” as you put it .
No one is forced to do it. It is a free choice.
You either belong to the church, like I do, or you do not.
After all the Church is just a club with rules and regulations.
It is not a la carte though and can never be.
You are either a member or you are not a member.
YOU are the poor idiot for thinking otherwise.
Well he thinks that John Lennon’s Imagine is ” pure evil; ideological pornography; and should be denounced as such.”
And reading the other articles seems that he is the one insane.
In history there is only a person the public adore..why not..In the UK we had Winston Churchill..Princess Diana..to mention a few.
[Daphne – A false comparison. Nobody hated or hates Churchill or the late Princess of Wales. They were not horribly divisive figures. They did no harm to the population or the country. One was actually a heroic leader. The other wasn’t even a leader. Mintoff is best compared to somebody like Hugo Chavez.]
Carlo you had nothing in th UK.
Who the hell are you to talk about what you had in the UK ?
Do not even dare mention the name of Churchill in this context.
Fuck Off !
Winston Churchill was the greatest statesman the human race has ever produced.
He was unique.
Never mind poor Diana.
Do not talk about Churchill, please, unless you insist on making a fool of yourself.
If so, please yourself.
WOW Daphne, are you describing yourself, this description sounds like you, you know, everyone hates you, they harrm the country, but I would like to add that I hope you get run over by a truck, but survive. Hey, there’s a free plastic surgery for you,, the tyre tracks will cover your huge nose!
Let’s wait for EFA to die and then we’ll see how his state funeral will be. About what’s written on the Catholic Herald…what would you expect from a catholic moron to write? One of those corrupt who all he says is ‘in the name of the Lord (which Lord here I ask)…more to say a Satan follower…dressed up of a ‘lamb’…
[Daphne – “a catholic moron”: imbasta dawwartu dak il-bicca zibel mejjet fit-tebut madwar il-knejjes meta ma kien jemmen b’xejn u kien jobghod il-knisja. Ir-religjon x’inju ghalikom? Tmorru l-knisja bhalma tmorru l-Black Bull Pub?]
“Dressed up of a lamb” = Liebes ta’ naghga.
Daphne, one phrase says it all.
I cannot understand why you bother to comment.
As far as I am concerned you do not have to.
But then it is your blog.
U inti tghidli li tmur titqarben kull nhar ta hadd daphzobb?
[Daphne – No, I don’t say that, because I don’t go to mass except on special occasions, let alone receive communion. Ah, I see: that’s a rhetorical question, used by rahlin in a context where it’s taken as read that everyone goes to mass and even receives communion, ghax inkella jghidu bihom in-nies.]
Oh ok, now I get why you don’t go to mass,.. Cause youre scared that people will throw shit at you.. and that youre posessed by satan himself
[Daphne – No, Unknown. It’s because I didn’t choose to become a Catholic and when I was old enough to decide for myself I decided I didn’t particularly want to be one. Religion isn’t about form to me, but about substance. I stopped going to mass on Sunday long before I started writing a newspaper column.]
Growing up in Bormla, I vividly recall going to friend’s houses and finding two framed pictures hanging with a candle or more beneath.
One showed The Sacred heart of Jesus, the Virgin, or some other religious figure or scene, and the other was always of Mintoff.
My friends could not understand why we did not have similar pictures at our house.
The only time I left a candle burning in full view for everyone to see on our window sill was that evening when Maltese of goodwill lit a candle for Poland’s Solidarnosc.
Our house was the only one in the neighbourhood to do so and my friends did not understand that gesture.
So I am not surprised at all.
Insejtu l-obituary li giebet il-Financial Times. Tajba hafna ghax gabet it-tajjeb u l-hazin ta’ Mintoff.
Issa telaq imma il-mibgheda li zerha ghada hawn u mid-dehra ghamlet frott mhux hazin.
….. rubbish …..
Some silent thinking: We have here a human being who has a soul. Whether we like it or not, in accordance to our beliefs, that soul was created by God.
We have reached the depths for not respecting this soul.
Dom Mintoff might have been the worst of the worst but he had a soul and I humbly feel that we are really showing that we are very shallow in our beliefs.
[Daphne – Yes, well, not everyone is Catholic, and rest assured that even Catholics did not respect the souls of their oppressors. Perhaps there are accounts of Italian Catholics standing around the strung-up Mussolini and saying ‘But we should respect his soul’, but I haven’t read them. The only thing anyone felt compelled to do, as I recall, was pin together the hem of his mistress’s skirt so that her underwear ceased to be displayed as it fell over her head.]
Apart from the farce that is going on, deep inside me I feel that as a Christian I should respect that sould that has just gone to meet its creator.
For the bad (and if any good) he made during his lifetime, it is God who will judge and not us very weak mortals. Do not judge lest you will be judged. I say these words in an effort to put some fundamental principles in front of all those who up to now have ony shown hate.
I don’t know why you cannot get it in your tick head that this whole charade you’re putting on, on a daily basis (excuse me, some others refer to it as a ‘blog’), is causing rather more harm, than any good to P.N., which party is already at a very vulnerable & unstable stage.
I am not going to comment on the various remarks written during the past days on Mintoff, personally I was never a fan of his politics or his tactics, however this hatred scheme you’re trying so hard to divulge, by using Mintoff death as your bait is the lowest form of spinelessness activity a person can do.
Yes, Mintoff did some very bad things, and he did some very good things as well (only stupid people would think or do not realise that never in time had existed a politician, who is loved by everyone or who is hated by everyone).
Many has referred to Mintoff’s period as a ‘regime’ (I would suppose they are referring to a totalitarian regime), but be careful as many people also refer to the P.N.’s rule in the past and recent time as a ‘regime’, just obviously not on this blog, you have to meet & talk to people, who has suffered under the P.N. rule, especially the working class, yes ‘MEET & TALK’ – something which P.N. hasn’t done in a long time.
(This being said neither Mintoff’s period nor P.N.’s periods, qualify as totalitarian regimes, but this word it being thrown out constantly, by people who do not even have a clue what it means).
Taht kull gvern dejjem kien hemm nies li ‘jpappuwa’ bhalek u hafna ‘bazuzli’ ohra u nies li bghatew, nassigurak li that il P.N. kien hemm hafna minnhom ukoll. You just need to hear both sides, unfortunately people like you who obviously are only open for a one sided dialogue, can never grasp what I ‘m saying.
And that’s the problem with your ‘blog’, you never try to make a constructive criticism on anything, you just deliver HATE, HATE & more HATE, I just hope that in this day and age, people can really make their own conclusions, based not only on their political colours, but also on common sense. Your ‘blog’ has turned out into an on-line version of the ‘Jerry Springer Show’, most of the people just log-in to have a lough, and I say most, alas there will always be true followers, who cannot make their own conclusions, but hey, even degenerate hate organizations like the Ku Klux Klan had it’s followers one day, it used to be millions, but now it’s just a few thousands, and this is what will happen to you in a few years (don’t be so optimistic, you do not have millions of followers), you’re already running on very low numbers.
Personally I think you are one of the most disgusting persons I have ever seen, I do not know why P.N. has not yet taken a decision to disassociate completely from any of your activities, but then again who knows ? kif jghid il malti ‘min jaf x’hemm min that’.
I agree with the last comment by ‘elephant’, i.e. ‘it is God who will judge and not us very weak mortals’. When the time comes you will be judged like any other mortal icluding Mintoff.
[Daphne – Oh bugger off. I’m bored of you all now. Nies tedjanti b’mohh ta’ dundjan.]