When last week I titled my blog ‘A papal Joke', I was referring to the fact that until then, his Holiness had not uttered a single word about the alleged sexual abuse cases, and had not committed to meeting with the alleged victims. He had however committed to meeting the higher echelons of our society which, given normal priorities, I found perversely funny, albeit according to protocol.

Then, somehow, the media pressure got to the Holy See, and the Pope addressed the issue, finally granting the victims 30 minutes of his time. If you ask me, it was a tad too little, seven years too late, but it made the victims feel better and that is all that counts.

Just for clarifications' sake let it be known that I never in any way implied that ALL priests are paedophiles or bad in any way. Nowhere did I ever write that, and I don't think it either. As a matter of fact I can think of at least a couple of priests who are downright saints. I do think however that the alleged cover up is worse than the crime itself, and I also believe that there were very few members of the Church who were not aware of what was going on. If this belief casts a shadow over the whole clergy, then so be it!

Wrong as it may be, when members of a political party, gender, band club, or even an oppressed minority group like immigrants, commit, or cover up a crime committed by another member of their group, a shadow is cast over the whole group that they represent, hence why prejudice and stereotyping persists. This happens even when the crime or action is of a much milder sort than child sexual abuse, so why should the Church be above this societal law?

This is the way of the world. This is the way life works. It's like a natural law that keeps individualism in check. Whilst some might not care about the personal consequences of an action, they stay on the straight and narrow for fear of shaming the group they represent. Same applies and should apply for members of the Clergy. Or do they really expect to have a get out of jail free card with a £200 bonus?

Now that the blessed Papal visit is over; now that our national funds have been further depleted to pay for it, and now that the famous phallic monument survived unscathed, I must say, that for reasons that differ from when I wrote my first papal piece, the whole visit did turn out to be a bit of a joke after all.

First we had the ‘uninvited guests' saga. I still haven't figured out the logic behind this move...perhaps there is none. Members of parliament who are separated from their spouses, and seeing someone else, cannot marry this someone else precisely because the church does not allow divorce.

But because the Church does not condone ‘living in sin' these MPs were invited to the Papal ceremony alone, without their new partners. How does that work? By going to the ceremony alone, wouldn't the MPs still be living in sin? Wouldn't they have left their ‘sinful' abode, driven to the Granaries, and then back to their ‘sinful' abode? What does not inviting them together with their partners achieve, except for more raised eyebrows and even more bad press? Oh! and what about tolerance? When did that go out of the Church's million dollar stained windows?

Then we had the attempt in covering the infamous phallic monument with a religious banner. Without going into the merits of whether the monument is in fact obscene or not, I have to say that the impromptu bleak attempt to cover it up with a banner just as the pope passed by it, was, to say the least hilarious.

Hats off to the people behind the strategy, if not for anything else, for their sense of humour. Even though it did not quite work, because as someone cleverly put it "with infallibility comes the ability to look above a banner", I have to say that it was a great attempt at getting their way without causing too much chaos. But the devil is in the detail, and clearly, as the image above depicts, they didn't quite think the whole thing through.

The Papal visit only lasted 27 hours, but the fun was endless.

The Prime minister, cracked a joke as soon as the pope landed, telling His Holiness that he hoped that the volcanic ash would extend his stay in Malta so that he could find some time to visit Gozo. Please note that this was ‘humorously' suggested prior to the announcement that the Pope had agreed to meet the alleged victims of abuse. Priorities priorities!!

The 83 year old exhausted Pope nodded off during the ceremony at the Granaries, landing us once again on the international press. Check it out here - http://www.alisonbezzina.com/im-all-poped-out/

Then for the cherry on the cake - on my way to the gym on Sunday morning, I got stuck in the Papal traffic. The police re-routed me three times only to get stuck again at the bottom of every road. I finally gave up and waited it out. I got out of my car and joined the crowd waiting by the roundabout (ironically the one next to the now legendary St. Joseph Orphanage in Santa Venera.) I sat there swearing in silence and fumbling with my phone wondering whether I would ever make it on time for my spin class.

The people next to me were holding rosary beads and posters with ‘love' messages for the Pope to see as He sped by. Some even wore yellow clothes, flew yellow flags, and wore Papal badges and caps!! Then suddenly, a helicopter started hovering over our heads, and police cars came flooding through. As soon as the Pope Mobil came in sight, the crowd went mad. They started pushing and shoving, and swearing, not silently but at each other; cameras came out of pockets, flashing aimlessly, and elbows starting jarring with third party ribs and necks. I took a step back landing myself in the roundabout's soil. I stared at the scene in front of me in absolute awe.

Isn't swearing and treating your neighbour in that way against everything that the Church stands for? Isn't such behaviour like going to a PL mass meeting chanting the PN anthem?

The only thing that topped this classic contradiction was this week's hunters' story - the one where a bunch of hunters physically attacked Birdlife members, called them all sorts of names like ‘German Bicis', and stole their mobile which contained incriminating footage of the attack.

After kicking innocent people around, scaring the living daylights out of them and threatening them with their lives and families, they deleted the condemning footage and anonymously returned the phone to the police station, just like good Catholic Citizens! What would you have to feed your children for them to develop such contrived values and logic?

The final straw was that the rightful owners of the camera found a way to retrieve the deleted footage which will now be used to identify the attackers!

Who says that we lack a sense of humour? No wonder I'm all poped out!