The Minister for Social Dialogue, Consumer Affairs and Civil Liberties, Helena Dalli, concluded her article in Times of Malta (March 31) by stating that “in a 21st century modern social order, a privileged position by the Catholic Church and the Vatican State is no longer fitting”.

Though I can only speak on my own behalf, I think it is safe to say that the Catholic Church in Malta expects no such thing. She does, however, ask to be treated with the respect due to any organisation working for the good of society, particularly one that has contributed so much and for so long to the social and cultural development of our nation.

Similarly, although the Holy See (or “Vatican State” as the minister dismissively refers to it) is obviously no China in terms of size or economic clout, neither does it deserve to be treated with contempt; out of regard for the spiritual sensibility of many Maltese – including politicians from both sides of the House – if for no other reason. By way of illustrating this privileged position that the Church-Vatican behemoth supposedly still holds in Malta, the minister decried the fact that “a priest abusing children and teenagers may be treated differently to a lay person committing the same crime in that the former may simply be prosecuted internally within the Church structures”.

When the minister repeated this claim in Parliament later that same week, the Archbishop’s Curia reminded her that a priest defrocked by a Church tribunal can still be tried before the civil courts (as has indeed happened in the recent past).

However, the ministry – in the tit-for-tat style we normally associate with electoral campaigning – immediately countered that this only happened “because the victims reported this crime to the police”.

As opposed to what, I ask. As the law stood for many years, unless it was the victim who lodged the report concerning the abuser (whether priest or layman), the police had their hands tied. For this reason, victims testifying in Church investigations were reminded from the outset and throughout the proceedings of their right to report their alleged abuser to the police.

Investigations by the Church and the State concerning the same case can produce different outcomes

In this, the Church was fulfilling its legal obligations within the parameters of a law that may indeed have been inadequate (through no fault of its own). It is therefore unfair to give the impression the Church was – or is – abusing some privilege.

Dalli referred to the change in law on domestic violence that made it possible for someone, apart from the victim, to report the perpetrator.

From her words, the minister seems oblivious of recent changes in the law obliging (under pain of a fine and imprisonment) those responsible for the education, care and custody of minors to report all abuses they become aware of that were committed within their organisation.

If the minister thinks further changes are necessary, she is in the right position to propose them; the ball is squarely in her court.

Various difficulties, however, should be considered in the event of such changes. One concerns the possibility that certain people may not come forward at all if they know that their accusation of a priest-abuser will eventually reach the police.

Another concerns differences between Church and State law. The Church, for instance, has removed the statute of limitations (prescription) concerning such crimes; the State has not.

Canonical and civil/criminal procedures also carry different burdens of proof: investigations by the Church and the State concerning the same case can produce different outcomes (as happened in the case of a priest convicted in the Church’s proceedings but acquitted by the State’s).

Would an Ecclesiastical conviction prejudice police investigations, leading an alleged abuser to be considered guilty from the word go, thereby vitiating his presumption of innocence?

All these factors risk blurring the line between Church and State, reminiscent of the 1993 agreement on marriage, which the minister, rather hyperbolically, labelled “infamous”.

It is a pity that in a week bookended by events celebrating national unity, Dalli decided to sing a different tune.

This need not be the case: she can rest assured that the whole Catholic community, and, especially, the many good priests who unfairly carry the stigma of their abusive colleagues, are united with her in wishing to see this heinous crime eradicated once and for all.

Fr Brendan Gatt is the Promoter of Justice at the Ecclesiastical Tribunal of Malta.