Don’t ring that bell! Ultra-conservatives hit out at Archbishop over gay layman

Archbishop Charles Scicluna may be one of the Catholic world’s most prominent figures for his role in bringing to justice paedophile priests.

But in Malta, his critics also come from an ultra-conservative minority that insists Scicluna “favours the homosexual agenda” – specifically for his endorsement of gay Catholic groups such as Drachma.

They include Philip Beattie, a former member of hard-right outfits Alleanza Nazzjonali Repubblikana and Azzjoni Nazzjonali, both defunct, who recently formed the ultra-conservative Pro Malta Christiana.

Beattie, a lecturer at the University of Malta, recently led a rosary rally in “reparation for the abomination of Malta’s annual gay pride”, a poorly-attended stunt that got short shrift from Scicluna. Beattie has now used the Vatican-critical blog ‘Church Militant’, an American website, to hit back at Scicluna, insisting that the archbishop is allowing a gay layman to be involved in a parish’s liturgical activities.

The layman in question was described as a former seminarian expelled from the Rabat seminary, who pled guilty in 2012 to tampering with a personal computer and stealing passwords, for which he was handed a three-year suspended prison sentence. Beattie says the man, then 27, had made unauthorised copies of lewd “homosexual” images belonging to the computer’s owner.

Beattie insists the layman is a “senior acolyte” at the Mosta parish church, who is allowed to wear liturgical vestments while carrying the traditional tintinnabulum, a little bell, in solemn processions organised by the Mosta basilica. “His current homosexual partner is known to have accompanied these processions in recent years, taking photos of [him]. Over the course of 2018, Malta’s archbishop participated in two processions during which [he] has processed carrying the tintinnabulum directly in front of the archbishop.”

Beattie appeared to justify his rant by taking issue with Scicluna for disassociating the Maltese Church from Pro Malta Christiana’s rosary rally.

Beattie has insisted that his rosary rally was to offer public reparation to God for the annual gay pride, referring to homosexuality as something still termed by the Catechism of the Catholic Church as “intrinsically disordered”.

Beattie accused Scicluna of allowing Catholic LGBTQI group Drachma permission to hold meetings in Maltese parishes, retreat centres and in the University of Malta’s Catholic chapel. “In 2014, Abp. Scicluna presided at a eucharistic celebration put on by the Drachma group aimed at ending ‘homophobia’ with the front of the altar draped in a rainbow pride flag,” he pointed out.