Even the most ardent of the Prime Minister’s supporters may clearly see his New Year’s kitchen message was a public relations disaster. It was an ill-conceived, badly researched, mediocre presentation that inevitably ended badly and was another reflection on the well below average quality of his minders and advisers.

Archbishop Charles Scicluna’s recent public comments highlighting the shortcomings of the Prime Minister’s New Year message were unquestionably out of order.

The content of the Archbishop’s remarks were highly political and not in keeping with the widely held view that the Church should keep its nose out of politics and most particularly domestic politics.

The Archbishop’s declaration that he will continue to be combative in public debate is based more on hubris and an exaggerated sense of self-importance, which sounds misplaced and incongruous in the context of his position, particularly within the mindset of modern society.

While it has become less rare for Church leaders in the UK to make controversial utterances in support of important social issues, there was no such basis for the Archbishop’s untimely comments in this case. This was a simple case of a democratically- elected Prime Minister using his position opportunistically to further goodwill for hisgovernment, a practice well traversed by all ofhis predecessors.

Given the absence of any pressing social issues in this matter and the obvious lack of democratic mandate other than possibly a self-bestowed one, Mgr Scicluna had no obvious cause to indulge in gratuitous critical comments of the Prime Minister.

The Archbishop was wrong in this and the Prime Minister was clearly within his reasonable rights to show dissent by not censuring Glenn Bedingfield’s rather banal comments, albeit those comments were clearly out of context.

Mgr Scicluna is doing a disservice to the position of head of the Catholic Church in Malta by indulging in unwarranted controversy with no social merit or upside.