So far you have held back from answering questions on Obama. Surely this is not out of indifference or ignorance. Why then?

That question is one that deserves an answer. There was nothing new about him that emerged from his being looked at in my particular perspective. Only very recently did I come across an interview that he gave to David Brooks of the New York Times in which he said that Reinhold Niebuhr (1892 to1971) was his "favourite philosopher". Obama went on to say that it was from Niebuhr that he got three principal ideas.

The first was the realisation of the strength of evil in the world (a reflection of the protestant concept of Original Sin) and the second was the consequent need of realism in politics, or in other words the impossibility of putting into practice the fullness of the Christian ideal. Apparently Obama was generalising on the basis of Niebuhr's example when the philosopher abandoned his pacifist principles in the face of Nazism.

Obama actually expresses this point as a commitment to being "humble and modest in the conviction that one cannot eliminate" trials and sufferings out of human existence.

The third lesson that Obama said he learnt from Niebuhr was that one had to "navigate between naive idealism and bitter realism". Obama was here rejecting both the abandonment of political action by those whose philosophical masters are the Cynics and the standpoint of those thinkers of the 'Catholic Right' to whom I devoted a previous interview. They were, of course, the favourite philosophers of George W. Bush, even though he may not have actually read their books.

I think that the main influence that Obama has derived from Niebuhr can be summed up as his concept of the relation between religion and politics.

From Niebuhr he got the persuasion that he must not seek to implement through legislation his moral ideals, but the best for which he could muster general popular acceptance. He has given this reason as his justification for opposition to homosexual marriage (it is unacceptable to the mass of his Hispanic and black electors). The same is presumably the reason for his stance on abortion (which is the same as that of his vice-president, Joe Biden, who is a staunch Catholic, and close collaborator of the Bishop of his diocese, although he has been severely criticised by other American bishops).

Do these principles derived from the philosopher Niebuhr affect Obama's approach to the crises he has to face?

I can hardly suppose that he enunciated the three principles without thinking of their relevance to the actual crises. The first principle - not underestimating the force of evil - probably implies that he recognises that he is not facing a mere financial crisis produced by some banks providing excessively easy credit, but a breakdown of the whole process of globalisation as it has been promoted by the United States up to the present.

So far the US (followed by the EU) on one hand still practises protectionism in the agricultural field to the disadvantage of the poor countries, still mainly dependent on the primary sector of the economy. On the other, the most developed nations have been pushing free trade for the industrial products which were their unrivalled exports to the rest of the world. This inequitable situation is now no longer sustainable.

The difference between pay and other working conditions in countries like China and India had already led to the products of labour intensive industries like textiles to be moved from the developed to the developing parts of the world. This shift has also been followed by that of other products of mechanical civilisation, and now also by that of products, especially services, of the new electronic civilisation.

Many in the West still do not seem to realise that the financial crisis in America could hardly have been sparked off because the US had such huge foreign indebtedness. It happened also because China had even more enormous reserves of foreign currency and in fact enabled the American financial institutions to provide the excessively easy credit facilities. This basic global economic change is the root cause of the current structural crisis that is affecting the whole world.

Hence, Obama's declaration of this second principle derived from Niebuhr, which might be called the humility principle, shows he realises that the style of hegemony that the US had been undisputedly exercising has to be changed. He has to implement the third principle of abandoning both cynicism in foreign policy and re-allow others like the European Union to adopt the renewed protectionism being advocated by Nicolas Sarkozy that has hitherto been successfully frustrated by Angela Merkel.

To what extent is Malta likely to be affected by all this?

There can hardly be any more doubt now that soon we will be facing serious problems both in employment because of falling demand for the goods and services we sell to foreigners and in government income because of lower fiscal returns. I do not know whether in the circumstances our representatives are taking sides in the neo-protectionist versus ultra-liberal free trade dogma to which everybody seems to have lately unthinkingly subscribed. Perhaps they should also be reading Niebuhr.

Fr Peter Serracino Inglott was talking to Miriam Vincenti