Right of reply: Defending Christian civilisation

There are troubling remarks in the article ‘Far-right nutters come aplenty...’ when it comes to the author’s mentioning of Pro Malta Christiana.

Matthew Vella, in his ultra-leftist imagination, has decided to clump together several Christian and pro-life groups with an author with alleged Nazi sympathies. Whilst it is not the intention of this right of reply, to comment on the alleged case, some points have to be made to clear the various inconsistencies, which this author has put in his article especially in regard to the Maltese Society for Christian Civilisation – Pro Malta Christiana.

The first point is that the said society has got nothing to do with any ideology inspired by Nazism or any other -isms based on racial ideology. Whilst it is perfectly understandable that for the likes of Mr Vella, anyone who is slightly not to the left of themselves is a Nazi, the reality is otherwise. Our beliefs and ideals as well as our statute are based on Catholic social doctrine, which to explain to the likes of the said journalist, who does not seem to bother to do some research, condemns Nazism and similar ideologies based on race.

Maybe a little bit of background reading especially of the Encyclical Mit brennender Sorge by Pope Pius XI and published in 1937, might provide a little bit of education. Besides, the Pro Malta Christiana, is itself inspired by the writings of Dr Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira, a Brazilian Catholic thinker, who in the 1930s wrote several anti-nazi pieces and describe Nazism as an idea coming from a ‘genealogy of monsters’ and that “the anti-religious policy of the Third Reich is one of its essential characteristics, a fundamental aspect of its ideology, indeed, the deeper meaning and the very reason of being of Nazism.”

Besides, Plinio’s Grand Uncle was Councillor João Alfredo Corrêa de Oliveira, a renowned Brazilian statesman who at great personal risk, enacted the liberation of his country’s African slaves, earning a place amongst the great abolitionists of the 19th century.  Perhaps Matthew Vella, should do a little less of hating those who seem to irk him and maybe read or maybe ask a bit more in his research.

However, and here we come to the second point, one sees in this article an attempt at cancel culture, directed at groups who he says, have a Christian agenda. One hopes that this is wrong, but his appeal to not give voice to groups who are pro-family and pro-life, smells of authoritarian Stalinism, with its aim at turning society into a postmodern version of Stalin’s Soviet Union. Of course, one should always give the benefit of doubt, even to a journalist who seems obsessed with seeing Nazis in Christians, and whose leftist agendas make him look like an authoritarian communist himself. But all this will not stop Pro Malta Christiana from doing what it has been doing, defending Christian civilisation as best as we can.

Carmel Borg

Maltese Society for Christian Civilisation – Pro Malta Christiana

Editorial Note: The said opinion piece did not allege Nazi sympathies inside PMC, but listed the group, whose PRO is also a member of the hard-right party Partit Popolari, as being part of the Maltese constellation of right-wing and religious parties and groups.