Divorce billboard ‘disowned’ by Church, sponsors

In fact, the advertisement beneath the ominous message – originally featuring the official logos of Nintendo and Sony products such as Wii, Xbox, Playstation and PS2, among others – was painted over at some point since Monday, as the pictures on this page attest.

Yesterday, Zebbug parish priest Fr Daniel Cardona issued a statement to explain that the billboard in question was in fact part of ‘an ongoing campaign in favour of the Catholic Church’s official teaching on divorce – adding that he “regretted any inconvenience” caused to the “electronic company that helped the parish cover part of the costs of this billboard”.

Contacted separately by MaltaToday, Vision Tech manager Jason Grech explained that his company was one of several to have sponsored the Church’s billboard initiative, and that he had no idea what message the billboard would display.

“In view of the furore surrounding this particular billboard, the parish priest and I both agreed that it would be better to remove the advert,” he said.

On his part, Fr Cardona also explained that the billboard message changes periodically, and that “the time had come to erect a new billboard.”

By coincidence, the change in billboard happened to take place last Sunday: the feast of St Joseph, when Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando – the Nationalist MP who has just presented a draft divorce law as a private member’s bill in Parliament – attended the traditional mass inside the Zebbug band club across the road from the Church.

The same mass was celebrated by Fr Daniel Cardona.

As was perhaps predictable, the initiative was widely interpreted as a political statement ahead of the parliamentary debate on divorce, now scheduled for after the summer recess.

To many, it was deeply reminiscent of the early 1960s – a time of deep unrest, when the Labour Party executive was excommunicated, and voting Labour was declared a Mortal Sin.

The Labour Party however played down the incident.

“I checked the calendar again this morning. It reads July 2010,” Communications director Kurt Farrugia said yesterday. “ We do not have problems with the Church expressing its views. Latest reports confirm the Curia was not directly involved in setting up the sponsored message. We hope everyone realises that the times have changed and that everyone is entitled to express one’s opinion without fear.”

In fact, the Curia this week clarified that it had nothing to do with the decision to erect the billboard.

“This was a parish initiative. The Curia was not asked for its opinion so the responsibility falls totally on the parish,” a Church spokesman told The Times yesterday.