Fr. Jonathan Farrugia accuses the Times of seeking to vilify Catholics by supporting the publication of an article full of unfounded allegations

I am publishing a long post by Fr. Jonathan Farrugia. Farrugia published this post on his Facebook page in reply to an article that appeared in The Times which was clearly intended to vilify Catholics in Malta. Here is Fr. Farrugia’s reply.

“All the cases mentioned in this article – rape, murder, racism, abuse, people dying at work, people left to die at sea, environmental destruction, etc. – are all serious matters which should not be taken lightly. However, the fact that people (or, as the authors label them, “Catholics”) don’t organize protests against them in the streets whenever something sadly happens, has nothing to do with the fact that a protest was organized last Sunday against the possible introduction of abortion in Malta. This is because no one is suggesting emending laws which decriminalise these crimes – if someone had to suggest decriminalising murder presenting it as “healthcare”, I’m sure there will be far more crowded protests.

Let’s face the facts: unfortunately, if people (and not just “catholics”) had to protest whenever one of these happens, then there would be protests every other day. But, unless I’m missing something, it seems that not even the pro-choice faction organizes such protests – while not finding any problem vilifying “Catholics” for not organizing them! Strange, isn’t it?

For the record: when Daphne Caruana Galizia was murdered and in the aftermath, there were protests attended by more thousands than last Sunday’s, and even when there were cases of people left to die at sea silent protests were organized. When Lassana was murdered, and when Miriam Pace died in the collapse of her family home there were vigils organized, and even when hundreds of trees were cut down and acres of agricultural land destroyed for infrastructure projects. The authors should get their facts right before publishing something intended solely to speak ill of a specific category of people (“Catholics”) who have a right to speak out as much as them.

One last word: saying that unborn babies “are not people yet” and “don’t even exist yet” says a lot about who is writing, as does the aggressive and impertinent tone used throughout the article.

Everyone has a right to speak their minds – be they pro-choice or pro-life, “Catholics” or non-believers – but resorting to unfounded vilification and insult is definitely not the way to go about it because it simply signals the lack of manners (and intelligence) of whoever is pushing forward his own agenda.