Restoration at Balzan parish church

Fr Kalċidon Vassallo’s letter (The Sunday Times, May 1), quoting excerpts from ‘Balzan Parish Church Environmental Monitoring Report’ of December 2006, probably helped clarify misconceptions regarding any possible harm caused by the airconditioning system to Balzan church’s paintings.

However, as professional people know, selective quoting could be very misleading and give rise to more questions. I admit that publishing the entire report in the newspaper would not be feasible.

A possible compromise the parish priest could have adopted was either to have the whole report published in the parish magazine, or else make it accessible to interested parishioners, who could view it at the parish office.

In an age of transparency, I think this would have been highly commendable.

Fr Vassallo also refers to the Balzan Heritage Commission. I was not aware of the existence of such a commission. To get more information on it, I accessed the parish website and consulted the 2011 parish calendar, but this Heritage Commission is nowhere to be found.

Is this ‘Heritage Commission’ some fictitious screen to create a semblance of professionalism when in actual fact the management of Balzan church heritage is a one-man show?

If this is the case, one can understand why throughout these past few years initiatives were undertaken which irked a section of parishioners who have their parish church at heart.

Can Fr Vassallo give us more information about this ‘Heritage Commission’ and its members?