The Curia, the Moviment and Sex

By Mark Anthony Falzon
Times of Malta
March 1, 2015

http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20150301/opinion/The-Curia-the-moviment-and-sex.557996

Mgr Charles Scicluna comes across as an intelligent, humane and outstandingly eloquent person. He has said that reform of the Curia will be high on his agenda as Archbishop.

Which is a good sign, because it suggests two things. First, that his point of departure will be to tidy up his own house. Second, that his approach will be restrained and realistic. I would have loathed someone who said he wanted to transfigure Maltese society with his smile or some such nonsense.

I don’t think Scicluna will be foregrounding himself to lead by charisma. He is more Pope Benedict than Pope Francis. We can expect clarity of thought and expression, a respect for tradition and ritual, and a sense of custodianship. I wouldn’t be surprised if he borrowed his episcopal motto from the watch advert: “You never actually own the Church; you merely look after it for the next generation”.

There are several reasons why his planned reform of the Curia stands a good chance of success.

Unlike Archbishop Emeritus Paul Cremona, who joined the court very much as an outsider clueless to its intrigue, Scicluna can draw on his experience as Auxiliary Bishop and more recently Apostolic Administrator. In many ways he has been the de facto mover since 2012.

His long experience as a Vatican technocrat tasked with tackling the explosive matter of child abuse, and as a generally trusted man of two Popes, should lend him the clout necessary to tackle the edgy and delicate egos that are said to populate the frescoed rooms at the Curia.

What was possible in Rome should be likewise in Floriana, so to say. It can’t hurt his gravitas that he is also a lawyer and a professor of theology. Politically, then, and with respect to the Church’s internal affairs, I don’t think the Pope could have chosen a better man.

Scicluna’s broader prospects are less straightforward. The main reason is that many Catholics in Malta appear unsure as to what kind of Church they really want. On the one hand, they would like a sort of return to a stronger institution that played a strong, possibly a dominant, role. I suppose it’s mostly nostalgia for an imaginary golden age when everything was good and stable.

Whatever its root causes and motives, this drift is a bizarre creature indeed. Common sense suggests that it is, in fact, a blessing that the Church no longer aspires to occupy the centre ground of local power and influence. Some of the people I know who clamour for a return to the Church of old would likely be among its first victims.

Many Catholics in Malta appear unsure as to what kind of Church they really want

The second reason why the Archbishop-elect faces a difficult task is that matters of sexuality and family life have become a kind of privileged litmus of an institution’s value. The trend (fixation?) is by no means limited to popular appraisals of the Catholic Church. Groupings as diverse as the Church of England and Joseph Muscat’s moviment have increasingly come to be judged by their attitudes to sexuality and the family.

Which rather causes problems. First, the universal Catholic Church is not exactly cutting-edge on such matters. It is a profoundly sexist institution that denies women the possibility of rank, for instance. It is also routinely damning on things like contraception, new reproductive technologies and homosexuality. Given his allegiance to Rome, the new Archbishop will somehow have to walk the tightrope.

Second, and more specifically, the past few years have seen a sea change in the way such matters intersect with the Church and the State in Malta. The Church weathered Dom Mintoff’s crashing waves rather well. Legions of suldati tal-azzar found it very easy to revert back to form. The way Mintoff himself was laundered at his funeral says it all really.

It is fair to say that the Church-Labour stand-off of the 1960s dented the former’s direct political clout permanently and in a big way. Indirectly, however, Church-associated groups played an increasingly significant role as nurseries for the new welfare regimes and agencies of the 1990s and noughties.

Only that happened in a social context that was changing profoundly even as concordats were signed and archaic rhetoric peddled. No matter how many Popes visited, the Fenech Adami governments were never truly conservative. Chocolate and toothpaste were not the only things they were tolerant to. His failure to read this rising tide proved crucial to Lawrence Gonzi’s undoing.

Two things in particular stand out. First, the divorce referendum showed that many Catholics were prepared to depart from the teachings of their Church in favour of legislation that was more in tune with the currents of that rising tide. Second, Muscat’s Labour has in many ways replaced the Church as the framework for discourses of civil rights, sexuality and the family. Put simply, Helena Dalli’s ministry is not staffed by churchmen or their agents.

The new Archbishop will somehow have to navigate these uncharted waters. There are some small clues that tell me he won’t always cope well. He seemed wobbly on the age of consent matter, for example. Swayed by the baying, he ended up fudging it and said that it was fine by him as long as 16-year-olds didn’t end up sleeping with much older people. Only I think he is too clever a man not to know that consent and choice of sexual partner cannot be separated.

Then again, he may well manage to convince us that sex is not all that matters. I can only wish him luck.

Contact: mafalzon@hotmail.com