Pope Francis discreetly grills Archbishop Scicluna on the subject of the ongoing land speculation of Church property in Malta

Pope Francis discreetly grills Archbishop Scicluna on the subject of the ongoing land speculation of Church property in Malta

Sunday morning, I posted a blog about the fact that the media confirmed what I had stated about Alicia Bugeja Said who is going to become Parliamentary Secretary. I also put up the front page of Malta Today because at its side, it carried this news. Many comments that were posted had nothing to do with my article. Clearly many individuals commented without even reading what was written but simply looked at the image!  

However, I wish to refer to the topic of corruption which was Malta Today’s front story. Let us be honest about what is going on before our very eyes. The Pope is right. There is great corruption on our island. But what many did not observe is that the Pope covered most of Maltese society and spoke about everything. He mentioned land speculation. He did this also in his discourse on Saturday. This was an obvious reference to what the Church did with its property in Nadur Gozo. Archbishop Scicluna was being politely grilled by the pope about the speculative deal he did regarding land in Nadur.   

After all this is not the only speculative deal in which Scicluna has a finger. There is also that in Għargħur, where land belonging to the Church, which was earmarked as a centre for Christian teaching, ended up in the hands of a contractor to build flats. We then had the narrative involving the Franciscan Minors, specifically the Porziuncola Retreat House at Baħar iċ-Ċagħaq. This not does fall directly under Archbishop Scicluna but nevertheless as Metropolitan Archbishop he has certain influence on the Provincial. 

Pope Francis did not stop here. On Sunday, during his homily, he had very strong words for those religious leaders he defined as hypocrites who make use of religion to further their personal interests. Besides,the pope accused religious leaders of taking a stand against those despised in society, instead of defending them. Was the pope here referring to our current Archbishop Scicluna who reprimanded a Catholic priest, who was defending the Catholic doctrine, for the simple reason that this priest was despised by the LGBT community?

In the light of Pope Francis’ message to look after those who are scorned by society, Fr David Muscat, the priest who is despised by the leaders of the LGBTIQ community, posted the following message on his Facebook page:

“Thanks God! Finally, someone came around with a mitre on his head, the bishop of Rome, to defend me. Long live the Pope”.

Fr David Muscat is facing court proceedings because he defended Abner Aquilina when everybody else was attacking the latter. He considers Abner Aquilina one of those individuals the Pope was referring to as despised by society. And now for having spoken in the manner he spoke about Abner Aquililna, Fr Muscat has landed in court facing charges of hate speech!