Malta is no doubt a predominantly Christian country, but like Christianity itself, a large part of this perception is founded on myth. Any child of six will tell you that the country boasts “an unbroken Catholic tradition” going all the way back to St Paul’s visit in 60AD (Acts 27, etc.) In reality, however, both visit and tradition are at best open to doubt. Still, it would be futile to deny that in recent centuries, Malta has overwhelmingly (and often belligerently) identified with the Catholic Church. Up until the early 1970s - when the Socialist government introduced civil marriage, and other reforms aimed at “removing the cobwebs of the Inquisition”—you could talk of a near absolute Catholic hegemony on the island, much of which is still palpable today.

The Independence Constitution (1964) still proclaims the Roman Catholic Apostolic faith as ‘the religion of Malta’, and accords the Church ‘the right and the duty’ to ‘teach right from wrong’ - which in practice translates into a near total Catholic monopoly on State and private education. Divorce remains unobtainable from local courts (though we recognise divorces obtained overseas, and there is mounting pressure for its introduction). Abortion is illegal in all cases, without any exception whatsoever. Blasphemy remains a crime punishable by up to six months’ imprisonment, and on other issues where the Church holds strong views—same sex marriage, assisted fertility treatment, sex education, etc.—legislation (or lack thereof) bears the very recognisable stamp of Catholic thinking.

For all this, Catholic influence on the public at large can be seen to have diminished. Church statistics indicate that Sunday mass attendance has declined on average by 10% each decade since 1960, and now stands at just under 50%. But the drop in practising Catholics does not appear to have corresponded with a noticeable rise in secularist thinking. Instead there has been an exodus towards other denominations – Evangelical Christians, New Age, etc.—and Islam has grown substantially, though numbers remain small (estimated around 8,000 of a total population of 400,000).

Outspoken atheists do exist, but are a tiny minority. And while no direct discrimination exists on paper, popular prejudice against atheism (mainly social and family pressure) remains an issue. This in turn suggests that the actual numbers may be higher than many would assume. But conditions for 'coming out', as it were, are not exactly optimal.

Matters were not helped when the Catholic Church declared a full-scale holy war on secularism in 2008–with the bishops variously comparing the ‘threat of secularism’ to Nazism in WWII, a barbarian invasion, the H1N1 virus, and so on. It was against this hugely encouraging backdrop that some of us decided to found the Malta Humanist Association (www.maltahumanist.org) in April 2010.

That same week, Malta was convulsed by hysteria surrounding the visit of Pope Benedict XVI, on the personal invitation of the President of the Republic, George Abela. Greeting the Pope upon his arrival at the Luqa airport on April 18, Dr Abela helpfully outlined a few of the reasons we felt the association was necessary in the first place:

“Today, we face the wave of secularism which has as its starting point the strict separation of Church and State: a laicist model advocating that the State should be strictly separate from religion which is conceived as belonging exclusively to the private domain. This profane character which has developed in some European States is driving people to be laicist or even anti-Christian...

“However, as we all know or as we all should know, the moral foundations of a society as a whole, comprising believers, agnostics or atheists, are better served not with the falling away from religion but with the reinvigoration of the moral consciousness of the State.. .”

In view of this, one of our first initiatives was to write to the President to ask for a meeting. This was duly held on Monday 28th June, and in a frank exchange of views we aired our concern at the sectarian direction he appeared to be taking the country (of which the above is but a taster). We also raised individual areas of concern to humanists, including a bias in the educational system against non-Catholic teachers, among others. On his part, HE President assured us that he was mindful of the rights of minority groups, and insisted that no hurt or offence to such groups had been intended in any of his public pronouncements. On the whole, we agreed the meeting was generally positive, though we can’t talk of any tangible results.

Since then the need to make our voices heard has been steadily growing. Opposition to divorce (including the beginnings of a Church campaign) is becoming more vocal by the day, and there is concern about new legislation reinforcing the existing, draconian censorship regime.

Our biggest battle, however, is likely to remain the item at the very top of our agenda: “to promote Humanism in Malta by encouraging a greater knowledge of Humanism among (our) members and the wider community.” Since forming the association our membership has grown to more than 300, which we estimate to be only a small fraction of the actual representation of secular humanists on the island.

Still, you have to start somewhere.

-- Raphael Vassallo, MaltaHumanistgmail [dot] com