Archbishop to MPs: inspire progress for people, not posturing and media spin

Malta’s MPs were asked to cultivate an environment in which voters could bear witness to respect and freedom, and learn to live “side by side despite our differences”, and to promote the common good.

In an homily to MPs on Saturday morning ahead of Malta’s inauguration of its 14th parliament, Archbishop Charles Scicluna quoted liberally from Pope Francis’s messages to the Maltese during his last visit to the island in April.

Wishing Malta’s new MPs well in their work, Scicluna called on them to ensure their endeavours be “an expression of the political love that was proclaimed most prophetically by His Holiness Pope Francis in his encyclical letter Fratelli Tutti.”

Scicluna paid tribute to the Pope’s message to the nation on 2 April, in which he called for the need to “shore up the foundations of life in society, which rests on law and legality” and said honesty, justice and transparency were essential pillars of a mature civil society.”

Quoting from the papal encyclical ‘Fratelli Tutti’, Scicluna called on MPs to work “a social and political order whose soul is social charity” and for oplitical parties to be made up of people with a determination to act.

“What is needed is a politics which is far-sighted and capable of a new, integral and interdisciplinary approach to handling the different aspects of the crisis,” he said, quoting the encyclical.

“Pope Francis distinguishes between love ‘elicited’ out of a sense of urgency — someone falls ill in the street and you feel the urge to help, since charity is a virtue intrinsic to all and that we ought not to give up on, and you help the person — but there is also a ‘commanded’ love and charity. What does the Pope say? These are his beautiful words of wisdom: ‘It is an act of charity to assist someone suffering, but it is also an act of charity, even if we do not know that person, to work to change the social conditions that caused his or her suffering’.”

Scicluna said politicians had to build bridges for people, providing not just food for people to eat, but the job that allows people to eat.

And he called for a politics of tenderness and kindness, again quoting Francis in describing this as “the path of choice for the strongest, most courageous men and women.”

“‘Politics is something more noble than posturing, marketing and media spin. These sow nothing but division, conflict and a bleak cynicism incapable of mobilising people to pursue a common goal. At times, in thinking of the future, we do well to ask ourselves, ‘Why am I doing this? What is my real aim?’”

Scicluna also called on MPs to reflect on their legacy, calling on them not to reflect on whether they were ‘liked’ but on what they did for the progress of the people.