Fr Joe Borg echoes claims of Church’s ‘leadership crisis’

Malta Independent
August 17, 2014

http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2014-08-17/news/fr-joe-borg-echoes-claims-of-churchs-leadership-crisis-6232342529/

Former Mġarr parish priest Emanuel Camilleri’s assertion – as reported in The Malta Independent – that the Catholic Church in Malta faces a “leadership crisis” has been echoed by priest and university lecturer Joe Borg.

In an opinion piece which appeared on today’s edition of The Sunday Times of Malta, Fr Borg argued that the leadership crisis faced by the Archdiocese of Malta was the elephant in the room which “all those I have talked to in the Church readily admit to in private to its existence, only to remain totally silent about it in public, or, worse still, deny its existence.”

Fr Camilleri, who had previously served as the parish priest of the St Mary parish in Birkirkara and of Msida, was only appointed parish priest of Mġarr last March.

However, his tenure was soon met with controversy as he sought to enforce a decree he had nothing to do with – it was issued by the Curia on 28 March – on the Via Sagra procession held in the locality.

Over the years, the procession had grown to include several statues and hundreds of actors, but the Malta Archdiocese had insisted that the procession should be scaled down as it was intended to be a penitential pilgrimage for those who attended. Instead, it ruled, only the statue of Christ the Redeemer should feature, and any other unapproved elements were to be excluded.

The ruling irked those involved in the procession, whose preparations had started months earlier, and who decided to defy the Curia’s orders when the procession took place on 15 April. A priest who had served in the Mġarr parish for seven years, David Muscat, was transferred to another parish on the orders of Archbishop Paul Cremona after he took part in the procession.

The incident, ultimately, served to sour relations between Fr Camilleri and some of his parishioners, although the priest insisted that he enjoyed the support of the majority.

Things came to a head earlier this month, when the priest was summoned to the Curia by Mgr Cremona, who said that a group of parishioners – who, according to Fr Camilleri, are actively involved in organising the village feast – had asked for his removal from the parish, claiming that he was dividing the community and that the parish was going backwards.

Fr Camilleri, who was offered the chance to study abroad, insisted that the claims were untrue, and told The Malta Independent that his impression was that everything was OK and that he could continue with his job.

But he was summoned to the Curia the very next day, this time by Auxiliary Bishop Charles Scicluna. According to Fr Camilleri, Mgr Scicluna said that he would tell him what the Archbishop lacked the courage to state: that he had to leave the parish with immediate effect.

Fr Camilleri insisted that his “unfair dismissal” following pressure by a handful of parishioners exposed the Archdiocese’s leadership crisis, and was highly critical of Mgr Scicluna for failing to stand up for him when he enforced the Curia’s own decree.

In his opinion piece, Fr Borg recalled that in a recent homily, Gozo Bishop Mario Grech had argued that the Church was in need of a “blood transfusion,” and provides a number of suggestions which could help to revive it.

He pointed out that the Church “sometimes gives the impression that it reaches unacceptable compromises with contemporary culture while religion is relegated to a ‘tradition of our fathers’”.

Fr Borg did not refer to the Mġarr debacle, but he observed that “more and more pastoral operators are every day realising more clearly that the leadership situation in the Archdiocese in Malta is worse than that experienced by the Nationalist Party after the 1976 election.”

“The number of those who believe that unless this situation is tackled, problems will continue to compound, is on the increase,” he added.