The Presidency has become a philanthropic agency with a ‘bleeding heart’ at its head.

We had a recent President who went to Peru as a lay missionary during his tenure of office and who refused to sign the Civil Unions Bill into law, as he was bound to do.

This trend in the Maltese Presidency of promoting private prejudices, under the guise of ‘conscience’, over the performance of public duty can be traced back to President Eddie Fenech Adami who had vowed that he would never sign into law a divorce Bill, whatever Parliament legislated.

Unlike him, Sir Anthony Mamo, Malta’s first president, was a secular, ceremonial figure-head who never used the presidency to proselytise.

After the tenure of the presidential-looking Ugo Mifsud Bonnici, the presidency became a platform for Catholic propaganda against divorce, civil unions and secularism as well as an agency of civic do-goodism.

The Presidency should be restored to its former secular, ceremonial status and the do-goodism and the proselytising should be left to priests.