Anti-gay ‘Rosary Rally’ led by former Azzjoni Nazzjonali candidate

Catholic traditionalists who announced a rosary rally on the eve of Malta’s gay pride march are being led by former right-wing and anti-immigration politician Philip Beattie.

Beattie, a lecturer in banking at the University of Malta, recently founded the Pro Malta Christiana organisation – a group of lay Catholics following the teachings of the late Brazilian activist and anti-communist Plinio Correa de Oliveira.

Earlier this week, Beattie – a founder of the right-wing Alleanza Nazzjonali Repubblikana, and later Azzjoni Nazzjonali – refused to release any comment to MaltaToday.

“I do not communicate with far-left newspapers,” Beattie told MaltaToday.

The ‘rosary rally’ is set to be held in Parliament Square on Friday, 14 September as “reparation to God for the Malta Gay Pride” – a fitting imploration from Beattie, who dubbed the marriage equality law a “communist and totalitarian law”, and in line with De Oliveira’s own view of homosexuality as “the number one enemy of the family”.

Beattie’s new organisation coincides with the recent creation of another lay Catholic organisation, Catholic Voices Malta, which includes in its ranks people like former PN finance minister, Tonio Fenech.

But Catholic Voices’ mission seems more aligned with the voice of Pope Francis than Beattie’s Pro Malta Christiana, which has posted critical pieces of the Roman Pontiff in recent weeks.

In 2005, Beattie was one of the founders of the Alleanza Nazzjonali Repubblikana (ANR), styled as a “traditionalist and Catholic” organisation that had led an anti-immigration protest. He later contested in 2008 with the right-wing party Azzjoni Nazzjonali.

Beattie was also a founder of the Pro Tridentina society in 2007, the movement to hold the Tridentine Latin Mass.

On its website, Pro Tridentina has described Pro Malta Christiana as a fraternal organisation, citing the former cooperation between Beattie and Fr Nicholas Doublet, the chaplain to the Apostolate of St Paul, a Catholic community also dedicated to the celebration of the Tridentine Latin Mass. Doublet has however confirmed with MaltaToday that there is no formal cooperation or affiliation between the Apostolate and Pro Malta Christiana, despite what was written on the Pro Tridentina website.

Pro Malta Christiana’s aims include the defence of the Christian traditions of Malta, the right of private ownership of property, the traditional family, the right to life, and the promotion of Christian ideals in the social and pure sciences, and philosophy.