Curia Asks Priest Who Called PN Candidate ‘Hitler, Satanist And Murderer To Remove Post
A priest who described Nationalist Party candidate Emma Portelli Bonnici as “hitler, a satanist, a murderer, a butcher and a criminal over her pro-choice views has been asked by the Curia to take down the offensive post.
Earlier this week, Portelli Bonnici reproduced a comment that Fr Andrew Borg left beneath one of her posts in an anti-abortion Facebook group that singled the PN candidate out for wanting a national discussion on abortion.
Borg’s was one of many vicious comments aimed at Portelli Bonnici.
Sources who spoke to the Times of Malta said that Borg deleted the comment and deleted his Facebook page after an intervention by the Curia.
The paper reported that Borg posted further comments condemning abortion, as well as politicians and journalists who are even open to discussing the medical procedure.
He compared abortion to the killing of an animal, adding that there appeared to be no room for Christians within a “Maltese liberal relativist dictatorship society” which, he claimed, only allowed politicians and the media to exercise their freedom of expression.
Borg’s original comment was reacting to a press conference during which the PN’s health spokesperson Stephen Spiteri called for an immediate parliamentary debate on abortion while reiterating the PN’s position against.
Despite this, it was Portelli Bonnici that faced the abuse.
Portelli Bonnici said that while she understood that some people may not like her or her views, she could not accept harassment.
“What I cannot accept is the harassment – the abusive, often libellous, and slanderous words from people who’ve never met me or spoken to me – that take the words someone else said in a press conference, make them my own, and attempt to intimidate me. It seems the concept of fact-checking is foreign to them,” she said.
“Many people – mostly men – have seemingly made it their mission to hurt me, to have me exiled from the PN, to evoke some kind of ‘negative’ reaction from me; to continuously attempt to drag my name through the mud and say absolutely vile – and mostly untrue – things about me online.”
“They do this, in an effort to be good God-fearing Catholics. The same god who preaches about loving thy neighbour, being kind, being empathetic, being a good person.”
What do you make of the Curia’s move?
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