Like it or not, the church is a political movement

I am not a Roman Catholic although I am deeply influenced by catholic social teachings as expressed by exponents of liberation theology and catholic liberals like Hans Kung.

I am also aware that the decline of the church's influence, although positive in the civil liberties realm can also leave a vacuum filled by extreme consumerism and the glorification of wealth. Therefore I follow the current debate on the direction taken by the local church with keen but detached interest.

I have to say that I disagree with those secularists who would like organised religion to steer away from the political realm and restrict itself to celebrating ritual. Such an approach ignores the fact that Roman Catholicism is a political and social movement.

It is also counterproductive to the much-needed dialogue between secular modernity and religion. For it is the absence of such a dialogue which creates fundamentalist inward-looking enclaves. On the other hand, such a debate tends to strengthen both, to seek a common humanist ground.

Throughout its history the Catholic Church was always a political and social movement. For most of its history the Church allied itself with the dominant classes, sometimes out of sheer desire to protect vested interests and sometimes to temper their greed and persuade them on the need of social legislation.

This started to change after Vatican Council II and the emergence of liberal Catholicism in Europe, and the theology of liberation in Latin America. For the first time Catholics started militating in movements actively calling for change from below.

Still, in Malta change took longer to arrive. This was so where the church used its political influence to arrest the development of secular mass parties of either nationalist or socialist inspirations. 

This is why the Church actively supported the creation of a Christian labour party to weaken both Borg Olivier and Mintoff. Still, the aversion to the latter made it see the former as a lesser evil.

When the divide and rule strategy failed, the church officially made peace with Labour while increasing its leverage on the PN, which increasingly relied on catholic hegemony to broaden its elitist appeal. Events like the attack on the Curia also cemented a broad coalition of practically everyone who feared the erosion of any semblance of an independent civil society, in the face of an authoritarian state.

After 1987, the Church found itself in a position where it could condition government policy by exercising its leverage on matters ranging from marriage laws to IVF. 

The change of the PN into a Christian democratic party was a double-edged sword for the Church. This is because the Church has always been better at conditioning conservative and even fascist parties with a clerical agenda than parties of lay people who freely interpreted Christian teachings to adapt to modernity. Yet the PN lacked the intellectual vitality to re-invent itself as a fully autonomous movement, inspired but not conditioned by Catholic beliefs.

Although in the 1980s the PN was becoming more autonomous from the official Church it remained even more conservative than the few left-leaning priests it attracted. For example the late Father Peter Serracino Inglott adopted more progressive positions on themes like IVF than the PN itself.

In power the PN acted more like a clerical party than a Christian democratic party. Moreover social conservatives increasingly filled its ranks.  Their Catholicism harked back to the past and had no connection to the movements unleashed by Vatican Council II. And the conservative backlash under Karol Woytla and Joseph Ratzinger changed the international landscape in a way which favoured clericalism over Christian democracy.

It was the watershed divorce referendum, which changed these dynamics of power in Malta. A majority of people simply rejected the church’s directives and voted for a social reform vehemently opposed by the church. Moreover, although reluctant to fight a crusade, the church’s hand was forced by more conservative elements who had an ephemeral and suicidal field day.

The defeat also transformed the PN’s unofficial alignment with the church hierarchy as an electoral liability for this party.  Yet right up to the end of the Gonzi legislature, elements in the church kept using their bargaining chip to condition timid laws like that on IVF.  This church’s insistence on exercising leverage on the PN even after the divorce referendum may be a reason why the PN feels so aggrieved by the church’s perceived timidity under Muscat.

Joseph Muscat’s victory on a social liberal platform and the sidelining of the catholic wing of the party associated with the Presidency of George Abela, who right to the end refused to sign the law on civil unions, meant that the Church had lost its bargaining chip on conditioning the new government.

Faced with the loss of secular power the Church could simply not afford to return to the trenches after being demoralised by the result of the divorce referendum.

Moreover the international climate started to change again with the election of Pope Francis, who while reiterating a conservative stance on moral issues has shifted his attention to social inequality and a critique of capitalism which bears some similarity to liberation theology. In some ways Pope Francis fills the political gap left by a bankrupt social democracy in its sell-out to neo-liberalism.

In this circumstances one can understand the quandaries facing the local Church, even the need for a period of silence and internal reflection. 

For the local church, the choice is between betting on its lasting influence on sections of the elite in the hope of re-exhuming the politics of leverage or to return to relevance by offering a critique of power structures.

In these circumstances PN leader Simon Busuttil's claim  that Muscat has silenced the church comes across as quite superficial at a moment when the it faces its greatest existential challenge in recent history. It also comes across as a yearning for a political alignment, which is counterproductive for the PN’s attempt to reach out to liberals.

Moreover the Church’s stance on civil unions may have not been vociferous but was clearly against. Such a stance may well have represented a mature approach of the bishops, that of respecting the prerogatives of the legislator while making ones views known. It also reflected the current Pope’s shift of emphasis from its obsession on homosexuality, abortion, divorce and contraception to social justice.

Still, there is also some truth in criticism that the Church is facing this epochal challenge without engaging in an open transparent debate and offering a sense of leadership. I would not be surprised that fundamentalist churches and sects will spawn in this vacuum in leadership.

For while under Pope Francis the Church has become relevant again by speaking for the poor and the marginalised, the local church seems lost for words on anything. Moreover the church's critique of consumerism, capital accumulation and xenophobia is more relevant than ever in the local context. Mark Monetbello’s inspiring critique of the Chamber of Commerce Economic Vision for Malta 2014-2020, is an example of how to make the Church relevant in the new ideological scenario where consumerism and the accumulation of wealth have gained the status of a new totalitarian religion. It could well start with the sense of awareness of the existential challenges facing the church presented by Fr Joe Inguanez in an interview published in March.

The critique made of the present government's planning policies by the church’s commission on the environment also offers some insights on how the church can become relevant.

For the local church the choice is between betting on its lasting influence on sections of the elite in the hope of re-exhuming the politics of leverage or to return to relevance by offering a critique of power structures.