DMB
14 Mar 2009, 04:29 PM
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20090305/local/nadur-carnival-controversy-nine-to-be-taken-to-court
Reacting to a statement issued earlier today by Archbishop Paul Cremona and Bishop Mario Grech, the police said the nine, aged between 20 and 35, will be accused of having: "without permission, or against the prohibition of the respective authorities, worn any civil, naval, military or air force uniform, or any ecclesiastical habit or vestment."
Here is a lovely article on the subject:
http://www.independent.com.mt/news2.asp?artid=84348
So go ahead and arrest me then
Daphne Caruana Galizia
08 March 2009
...Gang rapes, sheep-shagging, murders, old women stuffed down wells, dogs strung up dead, boy-fondling priests who hide in their Victoria homes from armies of door-stepping American journalists while the CNN cameras roll, homemade porn with schoolgirls, lying, cheating, stealing, drug-dealing, chucking wives off cliffs, wearing carnival masks to murder aunts, warden-stabbing, keeping old men as sex slaves while taking their pensions, and gruesome contract murders of lawyers shot and dragged bleeding from their doorsteps – all of these local Gozo problems passed him by. In the mind of the Bishop of Gozo, what brings his island into disrepute and shame, what undermines public decency and human dignity, is a group of 20-year-olds got up in frocks and beards “in an effort to make people laugh”.
...Those who counter this argument by saying that we should not be free to ridicule any religion at all do not understand the full, dangerous implications of their half-thought-through theory. Maltese society is still fairly primitive but one would have thought that by now we would have evolved to the point where we are no longer putting forward the sort of arguments which justified the Inquisition.
...To say that these arguments are more acceptable now than they were then because now we prosecute those who laugh at religion in an independent court and fine them, instead of torturing them on a rack and then giving them a jolly old burning, speak madness.
...The bishops, of course, were thrilled. You would have thought that the police had arrested and arraigned all those bigots, zealots and racists polluting the ether with their condemnation and suspicion of anyone who is black, African, Muslim or has come off a rickety boat into paradise. And, interestingly, the bishops haven’t breathed a word about all that, either. Going down on paper as Europe’s Bigotry Central does not bring the islands into shame and disrepute. No. Only dressing up as Jesus does.
...The whole point of carnival is that it is not a religious festival and that all authorities, religious and secular, are kept right out of it. Carnival is by its very nature anarchic.
...We cannot mock and denigrate Islam and regard it with contempt for prohibiting all depictions of Mohammed and then hold fast to a law that makes it a crime to dress as a minister of the Roman Catholic Church. But then I forgot for one moment that most people in Malta actually sought to justify the Muslim stance on coercing the secular west to comply with its religious rules. If this country knows what’s good for it, there will be a hundred people dressed as Jesus, the apostles and Fr Anthony Mercieca at the Nadur carnival next year. And if there are not, then we deserve everything we get.
...Meanwhile, I shall have to remind the Bishop of Gozo and the Archbishop of Malta that a priest’s frock is not brought into disrepute when it is worn by a young man having fun during a carnival parade, but when it is worn by a real priest who has been defrocked in Miami for going after boys, only to cross the Atlantic and hide out in Gozo. Or when it is worn by another priest who does the reverse: flees from Gozo to the United States when reports that he has been fondling boys mount up to the point where the Gozo Bishopric can no longer pretend that they don’t exist.
I've quoted a few extracts from the article, but it's worth reading in its entirety.
Reacting to a statement issued earlier today by Archbishop Paul Cremona and Bishop Mario Grech, the police said the nine, aged between 20 and 35, will be accused of having: "without permission, or against the prohibition of the respective authorities, worn any civil, naval, military or air force uniform, or any ecclesiastical habit or vestment."
Here is a lovely article on the subject:
http://www.independent.com.mt/news2.asp?artid=84348
So go ahead and arrest me then
Daphne Caruana Galizia
08 March 2009
...Gang rapes, sheep-shagging, murders, old women stuffed down wells, dogs strung up dead, boy-fondling priests who hide in their Victoria homes from armies of door-stepping American journalists while the CNN cameras roll, homemade porn with schoolgirls, lying, cheating, stealing, drug-dealing, chucking wives off cliffs, wearing carnival masks to murder aunts, warden-stabbing, keeping old men as sex slaves while taking their pensions, and gruesome contract murders of lawyers shot and dragged bleeding from their doorsteps – all of these local Gozo problems passed him by. In the mind of the Bishop of Gozo, what brings his island into disrepute and shame, what undermines public decency and human dignity, is a group of 20-year-olds got up in frocks and beards “in an effort to make people laugh”.
...Those who counter this argument by saying that we should not be free to ridicule any religion at all do not understand the full, dangerous implications of their half-thought-through theory. Maltese society is still fairly primitive but one would have thought that by now we would have evolved to the point where we are no longer putting forward the sort of arguments which justified the Inquisition.
...To say that these arguments are more acceptable now than they were then because now we prosecute those who laugh at religion in an independent court and fine them, instead of torturing them on a rack and then giving them a jolly old burning, speak madness.
...The bishops, of course, were thrilled. You would have thought that the police had arrested and arraigned all those bigots, zealots and racists polluting the ether with their condemnation and suspicion of anyone who is black, African, Muslim or has come off a rickety boat into paradise. And, interestingly, the bishops haven’t breathed a word about all that, either. Going down on paper as Europe’s Bigotry Central does not bring the islands into shame and disrepute. No. Only dressing up as Jesus does.
...The whole point of carnival is that it is not a religious festival and that all authorities, religious and secular, are kept right out of it. Carnival is by its very nature anarchic.
...We cannot mock and denigrate Islam and regard it with contempt for prohibiting all depictions of Mohammed and then hold fast to a law that makes it a crime to dress as a minister of the Roman Catholic Church. But then I forgot for one moment that most people in Malta actually sought to justify the Muslim stance on coercing the secular west to comply with its religious rules. If this country knows what’s good for it, there will be a hundred people dressed as Jesus, the apostles and Fr Anthony Mercieca at the Nadur carnival next year. And if there are not, then we deserve everything we get.
...Meanwhile, I shall have to remind the Bishop of Gozo and the Archbishop of Malta that a priest’s frock is not brought into disrepute when it is worn by a young man having fun during a carnival parade, but when it is worn by a real priest who has been defrocked in Miami for going after boys, only to cross the Atlantic and hide out in Gozo. Or when it is worn by another priest who does the reverse: flees from Gozo to the United States when reports that he has been fondling boys mount up to the point where the Gozo Bishopric can no longer pretend that they don’t exist.
I've quoted a few extracts from the article, but it's worth reading in its entirety.