Jean de Valette of the Order of Malta gives thanks to God after the Great Siege of Malta. Malta, traditionally a bastion of Catholic life and culture, surprised many when its bishops issued a relaxed statement on Communion for remarried Catholics. (Charles-Philippe Larivière/Wikimedia Commons)
By its territory, Malta could be called an insignificant island, but by its spirituality it has been of crucial importance from the beginning of Christianity.
It was there that the apostle Paul brought the Gospel when the ship taking him to Rome hit a sandbar and ran aground. The Acts of the Apostles recount: “The bow stuck fast and could not be budged. The soldiers thought at first of killing the prisoners so that none might swim away and escape; but because the centurion was anxious to save Paul, he opposed their plan. Instead, he ordered those who could swim to jump overboard first and make for land. In this way all came safely ashore. Once on shore we learned the island was called Malta. The inhabitants treated us with unusual kindness” (Acts 27:41)
The strategic position of the Maltese islands made it inevitable that their history would be marked by invasions and wars. The Republic of Malta is located south of Sicily and comprises Gozo plus a number of uninhabited rocky islets. Allotted to Constantinople in AD 533, the islands fell to the Saracens in the late 1090s and became a great support of the first Crusade. In 1530 the region was given to the Knights of Malta who served as a Christian bulwark against the Ottoman Turks. Napoleon expelled the Knights in 1798 but with the failure of his expedition to Egypt, could not hold Malta.
A British protectorate from 1800, Malta flourished but when the king of Naples and the British disputed the right to appoint the bishop of Malta in 1829, Gregory XVI removed the see from the jurisdiction of Palermo and made it immediately subject to the Holy See.
Malta suffered heavily from Italian and German bombing in World War II, and became an independent republic in 1964. Following independence, the new government adopted a more secular policy which was reflected by the constitution promulgated Dec. 13, 1974. Roman Catholicism was declared the state religion, divorce was banned, and Catholic instruction in all schools was compulsory.
Pope St. John Paul II visited the region for the second time in May 2001 during a pilgrimage following the footsteps of St. Paul. The Order of Malta, founded in the 12th century to protect pilgrims travelling to the Holy Land, had 11,500 members worldwide engaged in humanitarian efforts that included operating hospitals. By 2000 there were 80 parishes tended by 491 diocesan priests and 451 religious priests. Other religious orders included approximately 90 brothers and 1,310 sisters. The Episcopal Conference of Malta consists of two bishops, Archbishop Charles Scicluna of the Archdiocese of Malta and Bishop Mario Grech of the suffragan Diocese of Gozo.
A conflict of another sort erupted suddenly and spread worldwide with the publication of a document by the two bishops in January 2017. The text, called “Criteria for the Application of Chapter 8 of Amoris Laetitia” offers a set of guidelines intended to interpret and apply the most disputed section of Pope Francis’ much discussed encyclical, and comes down firmly on the side of a relaxation of the discipline which denies Communion to divorced Catholics who have remarried civilly. It speaks of a process of discernment and examination of conscience under the pastoral guidance of the clergy, quoting Pope Francis who says that not all people in irregular situations are subjectively in grave sin.
The crucial passage affirms that if the person manages, with an informed and enlightened conscience, to acknowledge and believe that he or she is in peace with God, he or she cannot be precluded from participating in the sacraments of reconciliation and the Eucharist.
Reactions to the Maltese document were rapid and vociferous. Conservatives denounced it as a disastrous compromise of the essential doctrine, while those who are apparently relaxed about the issue of doctrinal continuity and liberalizing Church law leapt to its defence. The publication of the Maltese document by L’Osservatore Romano seemed to bestow the seal of official approval, suggesting that the Pope himself was backing it, albeit at arm’s length.
Malta, traditionally a bastion of Catholic life and culture, has been relatively immune from secularizing influences which have rocked Church life elsewhere, and nothing in the histories of Archbishop Scicluna or Bishop Grech suggested that they might be found suddenly in the vanguard of the movement to bring the Church into line with contemporary mores.
How are the ex-Anglicans reacting? Amid the controversy dogging Amoris Laetitia, Bishop Steven Lopes, who leads the American branch of the Ordinariate (a group within the Catholic Church mostly composed of former Anglicans, which preserves much of Anglican liturgy and spirituality), sent a document to his clergy quoting the Catechism: “No one, not even the Church herself, has power to contravene this disposition of divine wisdom. The Pope is the servant of the Church and not its master.”