In his Pentecostal homily, Malta Archbishop Paul Cremona “urged the faithful to get over their disappointment over the outcome of the divorce referendum.” Cremona also said that the challenge for the faithful was to ‘Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to give to God what belongs to God”. Since this is far from an unconditional surrender, which is my favourite kind, here are an additional 6 Things Maltese Catholics should get over.

1: That they’re alone in this country

Far too long have we lived under the assumption that the single most dominant group in Malta is the Catholic faith. Before you get all statistical on me, I know that the counts repeatedly show Malta as 98% Catholic, but if you ask me, being baptised when you’re a few days old hardly counts. Our census does not even include an option to say ‘No Religion’, so that tells you how truthful the numbers are. And while I know that these factors notwithstanding Malta is still predominantly Catholic, I also know that the many of these are happy to be Catholic in their own home and leave others to their own devices. Therefore, not the kind of Catholic who thinks they can impinge on others’ lives and choices with impunity.

2: That their voice is the loudest

The media in this country, at least the mainstream media, has always been very careful not to tread on the Church’s toes. While this may still be the case, what the Church doesn’t realise is that we are now at liberty to pooh pooh their messages. Granted, we don’t have our own radio stations or our own people high up in the media hierarchy. That doesn’t mean that we are like St John the Baptist, “the voice of one crying aloud in the desert.” Far from it. In fact, we are legion.

3: That we have to be nice

We live in a society in which criticism is automatic and not always deserved. We harp on our politicians and other influential people in the country with typical Maltese rigour, so why should the Church and religion be the exceptions? Why should criticism of the Church and churchmen be off limits? With the influence they wield, surely they ought to expect some sort of backlash. And no, I’m not giving room for a blanket slating here; for example, I will forever applaud the Jesuit Refugee Service for the work they do. However, backhanded attempts to influence the country and its progress should be called out for what they are. Time and time again.

4: That they can scare us

While this was certainly the case a number of decades ago, and still is the case in a large segment of the population, what the Church doesn’t seem to realise is that now, we sort of know better. Information isn’t hoarded as before, and we have our own channels where the Church has absolutely no say on what gets said. I somehow don’t think too many people my age would be fooled by the tricks our forefathers fell for.

We’re not so easily scared with threats of hellfire and damnation these days. This may be partly because we’ve all watched the Devil’s Advocate, and partly because this kind of messaging doesn’t hold sway with us any more. Quite frankly, the Church bores us, and worse, it’s a throwback to other times, times when we knew less and took what we were told as gospel, literally and metaphorically. Today we have Hollywood to do that for us.

5: That we forget

Nothing is forgotten these days. Nothing. It’s all reported, taken note of, filed and archived. If the bishop thinks that we’ll forget the hidden hand in the divorce referendum, or perhaps slip the 11th hour apology out of our minds, the bishop would be mistaken. When a political party describes itself as “liberal in policies, and conservative and radical according to the matter in hand”, we don’t just chortle and damn near choke on our coffee. No, we sit down and take notes, all while beaming a pure white smile. These errors of judgement have been catalogued and spoken of. Next time we’ll know what to expect even more.

6: This whole ‘pride’ thing

We get it, you’re Christian. There really is no need to rub our face in it, as after all, we’re not errant puppies leaving feces all around the house. Where Edwin Vassallo stresses that ‘contrary to the “trend of being atheist” he is proud to express his sound Christian values, and criticised the media for hounding MPs to know how they will vote on the impending divorce bill in the house’, we take good notice and perhaps comment a little online. When IVF rules are written to be ridiculously narrow and restrictive, all because of your belief in a non-specific entity you call god, we sit back and take heed. We know that this supposed pride at being Christian, or any other religion for that matter, is really just a bullshit argument to keep our mouths shut because religion is holy and should never be attacked, but, we’ve already dealt with that.

After all, why should we give a toss what our MPs are proud of? Perhaps if they were proud of the green, efficient transport system, or an efficient and cost effective energy grid, or a cohesive plan to rid ourselves of €4 billion in debt, or a plan to raise women’s employment by 50%, I wouldn’t have said anything. However, given we have none of the above, and plenty of Christian bullshit being spouted, I believe my comments are justified.