Archbishop Paul Cremona has been heading the Maltese Church since 2007. Photo: Darrin Zammit Lupi

The Maltese Church’s leadership is in a worse situation than that of the Nationalist Party after the 1976 general election, according to Fr Joe Borg.

Writing in his weekly The Sunday Times of Malta column, Fr Joe compares the Church to the PN’s demoralised and rudderless state after leader George Borg Olivier suffered his second consecutive defeat against Dom Mintoff.

“I have postponed writing this so clearly for quite some time. Today the situation is such that writing about it has become a matter of conscience,” he said.

Inspired by Gozo Bishop Mario Grech’s homily that the Church was in desperate need for a blood transfusion to eradicate the feeling of sloth and instil vibrancy, Fr Joe targets “sloppy homilies”, and “mediocre reading of the Word of God”.

He gives examples of how the Church could change, but asks if there was enough courage, determination and leadership to do so.

“All this brings me to the elephant in the room, which all those I have talked to in the Church readily admit to its existence in private, only to remain in total silence about it in public or, worse still, deny its existence,” he said.

Fr Joe said there was an ever-increasing number who believed that unless this situation was tackled, problems would be compounded further.

Doubts over Archbishop Paul Cremona’s leadership had surfaced back in 2012 when he had experienced health problems due to exhaustion.