Pope Francis is due to visit Malta a week after the next general election. He didn’t mean it that way and, word is, he was told it would not be that way. It’s going to be awkward. This country does not wake up indifferent to an election result. So fair and foul a week as the week that immediately follows a general election, our calendar does not see.
Before the date for the papal visit was set, Robert Abela’s government assured the Vatican that either a general election would have long passed by the time of the visit or campaigning would not yet have started for an election set for later in the year.
After the date was locked in and announced, it appears, Robert Abela changed his mind. Perhaps the pressure of the revelations about his own personal financial affairs forced the prime minister’s hand. But the hand that’s being forced now is the papacy’s.
The last thing the Vatican would want is to be seen to endorse a political party in a new government. The issue is not that we fully expect that party to be Labour. I think the Vatican would be just as unhappy to be seen to endorse the PN after a fresh electoral victory to the annoyance of Labour’s supporters.
Earlier in this series I commented how utterly lacking in decorum and proper behaviour Labour leaders have shown themselves to be announcing an election date to a party crowd before formally informing the President.
It should surprise no one that they won’t mind causing a diplomatic scrape with the Vatican and putting the pope in the awkward position of having to decide if it would be worse for his visit to be postponed or to keep it as is. Remember of course that postponing the visit now could also be perceived as a gesture, perhaps of displeasure with the party in government for the scheduling mess they caused, that the pope would also want to avoid.
Crass, rude, self-centred, are ways you can choose to describe Robert Abela. Truly an infant.