In his intervention during the Synod of Bishops at the Vatican last October 15, Archbishop Paul Cremona spoke of the "stumbling block" faced by the Church in Malta and by other traditionally Catholic countries.

Many of the faithful, he said, still live in nostalgia of a model of the Church as it was conceived 30 to 40 years ago. They still compare the present situation with that prevailing in the middle of the past century and are shocked when the Church and the Bishops are challenged.

The Archbishop's words bring to mind Pope John Paul II's words in the Apostolic Exhortation Catechesi Tradendae when he declared that his pastoral and missionary preoccupation was directed at those who, although born in a Christian country, even in a sociologically Christian context, have never been educated in their faith and, as adults, they are actually real catechumens (meaning Christians who still have to undergo a personal experience of Jesus Christ).

Cannot we quote the same statement for the state of the faith, as different from religion or, worse still, natural religiosity, in our islands?

The Archbishop also spoke of the need for an evangelisation that responds to present-day realities. He lamented that the mentality of many Maltese Catholics is still tied to the ideas and practices of some 50 years ago.

He is very right. Many are still bound to the concept that you are a member of the Church if you attend Sunday Mass, go to confession and receive Holy Communion at fairly regular intervals and, maybe, recite the Rosary. All this is to be commended but does it make one a follower of Christ? Does it "Christianise" one in the proper meaning of the word?

The big challenge of the Church in Malta, and in any other country, for that matter, is to evangelise the faithful in the sense of making them conscious of their "Christianity" and the responsibilities arising from this fact. But is this message actually getting through?

Let us say that a substantial number of these "faithful" do not live up to their call and may have even renounced it. But there is also a group, running up to some 30,000 lay members of Church organisations, that forms a receptive audience. It is this group that has to be nurtured in order to participate actively in the "new" evangelisation process.

Archbishop Cremona spoke of this process when he said: "We have to propose a new model of being Church and the model which corresponds most to today's reality is the primitive Christian community as it is described in chapters two and four of the Acts of the Apostles and brought to life in the other writings of the New Testament. We have to compare the Church today to, and shape it on, that community".

The Archbishop's constant incursions into public life are obviously taken from this perspective; a Church that is open to all, that has shed a domineering position and is concentrated on placing Herself at the service of the community. Because it has to be said that Christ became man to serve man and the act of giving His life for the salvation of mankind was not, and is not, to be confined to man's spiritual welfare but was also meant to affirm the dignity of man, whoever he is, wherever he is, and all that this dignity entails in the spiritual, religious, political, occupational, social and familial contexts.

This is the message of Acts 2 and 4, a Church at the service of the community. Which must be the reason why the Archbishop, during the pastoral visit opened this month, will be holding hour-long meetings with parish commissions engaged in what are popularly called "charitable activities" but which are actually fulfilling the deaconate role so prominent in the early Church.

I understand that he has already at hand detailed reports on the functioning of these and other commissions.

In this regenerative pastoral process emphasis has to be made on the "small ecclesial communities" John Paul II mentions in his Christifideles Laici, which are to act as bridges between individuals in the spirit of Christian brotherhood. In the Ecclesia in America, the Pope suggested that these would lead to the concept of a parish that is "a community of communities".

It is a phrase that was also used in the First Pastoral Plan for the Maltese Church in the 1980s but the actualisation of the concept never really got off the ground. And, yet, it is these several communities that can be guided into becoming the leaven of the community they live in. Their formation, based on the Word of God, has to bring out the joy of Christ triumphant on death and the failures of life. It has to exude love of one's neighbour and of one's enemy. It has to instil hope among so much that looks negative.

Archbishop Cremona's pastoral visit is a challenging exercise that could also lead to this revival.