Priest Calls PN Candidate ‘Hitler, Satanist And Murderer’ For Pro-Choice Views
A priest has described PN candidate Emma Portelli Bonnici as “Hitler, a satanist, a murderer, a butcher and a criminal” over her pro-choice views, even comparing her to King Herod and his Massacre of the Innocents.
Portelli Bonnici reproduced a comment that Andrew Borg left under a post in an anti-abortion Facebook group which said the PN candidate wants a discussion on abortion.
His was one of several vicious comments that the PN candidate reproduced, with others calling her “the devil’s daughter”, telling her to “get sterilised” and saying it’s a sin she’s still alive, and others leaving sexual slurs.
This followed a press conference on sexual health that Portelli Bonnici delivered alongside Shadow Health Minister Stephen Spiteri.
During the press conference, Spiteri, and not Portelli Bonnici, called for an “immediate” parliamentary debate on abortion while reiterating the PN’s stance against it “in the present”.
However, Portelli Bonnici has confirmed in the past that she is pro-choice.
Portelli Bonnici said that while she understands that some people may not like her or her views, she cannot 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.”
“This is the god they purport to represent when they mudsling and pour vitriol out via their keyboards, like the small, cowardly men they are. One of them is even a priest – are these the Christian values you teach during Sunday sermons?”
“Hate speech, the instigation of violence, and defamation are not only immoral acts but they are also criminal.”
Portelli Bonnici added that these kinds of comments and slurs actually galvanise her and that “I will not quit because you so demand”.
“The systematic abuse of women who dare speak about controversial issues, who hold public roles, or who have the audacity to disagree with archaic norms is unacceptable,” she said.
“It’s time up for gender-based abuse. Time up for sexist attacks. It’s time up for the mentality that just because someone assumes a public role or aspires to be in one, she is deserving of cruelty, abuse and death threats. Time up for witch hunts.”
“It’s time to once and for all cleanse politics from symptoms of the Puritan Age and 1600s Salem. You can’t just burn intelligent, unafraid women at the stake anymore – no matter how hard you try.”
Do you think it’s acceptable for priests to speak like this?
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