As I said in my previous blog, 'A Church in melt-down, a Renault 4 and a pair of binoculars',  I consider myself a judicious practicing Catholic. 

I must say that an element of despondency did catch up on me following the news that Archbishop Cremona now Emeritus had 'hung up his boots'. 

Eight years ago the hype around this Dominican friar appointed Archbishop was enormous - the expectations even bigger.  Do you remember his smile when he played football with the boys at his perfectly orchestrated initiation, the feasts, the bands that were mobilized and the incalculable events that were organised?

The devoted were hopeful. 

After Archbishop's Mercieca tenure, people believed that Cremona was not only a breath of fresh air but the Maltese Church's renewal in persona.

I did interview him a couple of times on my programme Ghandi xi Nghid and he came across as an extremely humble and affable person.  I remember his eyes glittering, happy and completely at ease speaking about Jesus but when it was the Church and institutional issues he seemed to fade away into cavity. 

As they say, 'il-gurnata minn fil-ghodu turik'. 

That exquisite, natural, soothing smile started evaporating rapidly. 

As from day one, his episcopate was marred by in-house tribulations and external challenges.

As soon as Cremona had taken the top job, the 'religious' communities felt it was a victory over the diocesan priests (the latter seemed to have had a problem swallowing the fact that one of theirs was not the anointed). You also had people who were auto-promoting themselves as assistants, telling him what to do and when to do it, making him increasingly inaccessible.   To add insult to injury he had to try and pick up the pieces of the child abuse scandals - a situation that rocked the foundations of the Church. Non-stop quandaries at the parish level didn't help.  The dispute with the feasts enthusiasts went barmy. But according to Archbishop Emeritus it was the divorce debacle that broke the camel's back.  For the first time in many years the Church was losing ground amongst the people that traditionally were on its side.  The campaign was messy, confusing and badly chosen.

However I think that what really cracked the whip was the straight out altercation with some of the leading and highly vociferous priests who went public on the issue of church leadership. Their uncertainties on the Church leadership elbowed him out.  His mental health problems meant that he was standing on one foot and bam - he was taken down, probably not planned to happen that way but with a man who was struggling with mental health issues I wouldn't have thought that it could have had a different upshot. 

Cremona acknowledged that this fracas with these influential priests seemed to have quickened the pronouncement. I was surprised how Pope Francis was so nippy to accept the resignation. 

What is momentous is that two years of Bishop Scicluna did not seem to iron things out and if Scicluna can't do that, I wonder who can. 

This situation leaves the Maltese Church in bedlam. 

When the number of faithful practicing the rituals is going down, when our society, our politicians, our institutions are finding it increasingly easy to do away with the church's position on social issues, when so many progressive agendas have seeped in to our system (from divorce, to cohabitation, to IVF/ISSI, to civil partnerships, to gay adoptions), it is very likely that the Church, as I predicted in my previous blog, will die a natural death - unless something deep-seated takes place.

I think Pope Francis is reading into the situation much more than the people sitting in the hot seats here in Malta.  He rode the crest.  He knew that sooner rather than later the incongruity would turn into dissent and he wanted to avoid a fully fledged coup d' etat.

This parish priest, this preacher, this gentle man finds himself disappearing into nothingness, with very little legacy to go by.

A sad end to a propitious beginning. 

Am I hopeful of what is to ensue? Desolately not.   

 

Andrew Azzopardi presents Ghandi xi Nghid and lectures at the University of Malta