Martin Scicluna's criticism of the President's address to the Pope (April 20) is both unwarranted and unjust.

There is no need to go beyond our shores to realise that we have in our midst a small but noisy unrepresentative secularist section that misinterprets the "strict Church-State separation" as a muzzling of our bishops' right to explain the teaching of the Church in such matters as abortion, divorce and euthanasia even when addressing their congregation inside the church.

On the other hand, the separation of Church from state is ignored when those same secularist critics would deny the right and duty of the Church to adopt its own internal disciplinary measures, in addition to those exercised by the state, when it deals with defaulting priests who do not live up to the high standard expected of them by the Church. What is being demanded is not a "separation" of Church from state but total "subjugation" of the Church to the state.

The President should be congratulated for his moving address reflecting the opinions of the many thousands of Maltese who gave such a resounding welcome to His Holiness.