Jon Mallia: Fr. Martin’s Understanding Of Christianity Is Deeply Captivating… And I’m Agnostic

These effigies then become the ideal to which we aspire, and the totem around which we gather and unify.

Of course, religions and gods have been wielded by power-hungry maniacs to undermine individual sovereignty and precipitate boundless human suffering. God is a terrifically powerful concept that has the potential to change individuals and societies in unimaginable ways.

Although not exclusively for evil’s sake, for sure.

With that settled, the first issue here is to articulate what I mean by ‘best values’.

I’ve deduced these as being qualities that when expressed at a large enough scale, produce societies that are as aspirational, satisfied and intelligent as life on this Earth can permit humans to be. All the while, vanquishing needless suffering wherever we may find it.

And history presents plenty of reasons for us to care about this deeply.

States where value structures are primarily laden with greed, ignorance and duplicity often degenerate into violent hellscapes where the crushing disparity between the materially impoverished and the ostensibly opulent grows every day.

Bad value structures are the root of most pain. Certainly the pain that could and should be avoided.

Fr. Martin and I discussed the paramount role of value structures at great length. I questioned whether structures underpinned by supernatural claims still had any place in modern society. We also delved into the phenomenon of religion itself, and how it has prevailed in practically every human society.

Of course, to Martin I have it all backwards. Man is a creation of God and not the other way around. And for all I know he’s right. God created Man and lodged into his psyche a need to connect with the creator. This could perhaps explain why religions prevail in practically every society in some shape or form.

Nonetheless, to an agnostic such as myself, who is only combing through ideas in order to extract what is useful in practice, our divergences on the metaphysical are not of great concern.

So what is the goal here?

To find out if Fr. Martin Cilia understands something about the longest prevailing religion in the west that most of us today fail to grasp. And whether what he’s figured out could be in some way useful in helping me design a better existence for myself, and those I care about.

I concede that my wish for acquiring useful knowledge from someone that was advertised to me as an ‘intelligent man that has clearly articulated some foundational truths’ for himself, eased my disposition going into the conversation. I was perhaps more receptive.

However, after beating addiction, I’ve spent countless hours talking to pastors, monks, and priests, in the hope that they would quell my existential confusion with practical instruction derived from ancient wisdom.

That project yielded only failure.

Some of those I sat with were either too deeply immersed in their spiritual practice to understand what actually went on in the world or they concealed their shallowness beneath the pomp of ritual and inscrutable scripture. Many were charlatans and perverts indulging their penchant for power and narcissism.

But not Martin.

After four hours of exhaustive conversation, I seem to think he somewhat breaks the mold. Martin is a man concerned with depth first. A man that loves digging to the core of things to find out where the faults actually lie and what it is we are actually sitting on.

This of course sets him at odds with convention, that is mostly concerned with rituals, flags, protocols, hymns and statues rather than what these symbols actually mean.

Compassion, integrity, courage, the sovereignty of the self all traded in for domineering gilded domes and coke-fuelled processions celebrating the Risen Christ.

Christianity, especially Catholicism has gotten a bad rep, and justly so. It’s been responsible for the murder of artists and the barbaric stifling of scientific progress. It has preached chastity from the pulpit and concealed the systemic abuse of children in its unhallowed halls. Its prizing of poverty, while sitting enthroned on a profligacy of stolen riches, is obscenely hypocritical.

And there should be no passes granted for any of this. If any reconciliation between the Church and Modern Society is to ever take place, these sins must be addressed sincerely, deeply and without favour.

However, what is fast becoming the main object of my intrigue is what we could unearth once we core through the lavish slabs of cathedral marble, to find what has been buried beneath.

I suspect that what we have been sold as a paragon of human grandiosity, is in reality a decoy for the actual treasure that has been long buried beneath it.

At some stupid point in our history, the symbols became more important than the meaning itself. And this is the exact definition of superficial.

We have become so pathetically superficial.

And while Fr. Martin Cilia, may not have all the answers, his penchant for depth is an oasis on the horizon of cruel desert land.

Jon Mallia’s conversation with Fr Martin Cilia is currently only available to Patreon subscribers of his podcast show. It will be published on Thursday evening and will be streamed on Lovin Malta’s Facebook page as part of our collaboration with Il-Podcast ta’ Jon.