I don’t tend to sit in judgment, much. Well, you know what I mean: I do, but not on moral issues. But when I notice a slew of letters from people climbing up onto moral high horses and waving swords around, seeking to chop off the heads of morally lesser mortals than they, I get irked and think it’s about time someone told these busybodies where to get off.

I’m not about to go trawling through the letters pages to dig up their names, and morally convinced as I am that many of them are the same people who moan on and on about topless bathing and such-like matters of great pith and moment, to say nothing about discoursing interminably about the way Holy Communion is to be given, I won’t be naming names.

I suspect that they’ll write in to comment, anyway, so by their own hand they shall be highlighted.

What brought this spate of moral goody-two-shoedness about was a remark apparently made during some TV show or other by a clerical gentleman, who said something on the lines of it not being so earth-shatteringly terrible if people who are cohabiting (shock, horror) were to receive Holy Communion, because their relationship with God is, at the end of the day, their own business.

The programme concerned wasn’t one that is on my list of “to be watched for sure” (there is no such programme on local television) so I couldn’t testify under oath as to what was said or even give an account of the context, but my impression of the cleric’s contribution is that it was pretty reasonable, echoing the “cast the first stone” sentiment nicely.

This was not enough for the Holier than Thou Brigade, who immediately demanded that clarifications be issued and that the nation’s morality be protected from such apostacy.

And lo and behold, immediately there issued from on high (not very high, but high enough) a statement that cohabitation is a naughtiness of the highest order and therefore those guilty of this grave, grave sin were precluded from receiving Holy Communion.

Now, far be it from me to pronounce on matters religious, but I always thought that one’s conscience is one’s own and in this day and age no-one should presume to sit in judgement of one’s fellow man and woman. In fact, to the extent I ever gave the matter any thought, whenever I see someone who I know is “living in sin” taking Communion, I take the view that this person must be at peace with his or her God and that this is a good thing.

Uncharitably, I tend to be more put off when I see someone I know, for instance, to be a racist scum or a two-timing businessman, going up to the Altar as if butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth, but that’s just me, I suppose. For the self-appointed guardians of our morality, there’s never been the faintest idea that being an overt racist disqualifies you from receiving Communion, perhaps because – at least in Malta Cattolicissima – being a racist means being down on other religions.

I do wish people would stop spouting religious dogma all the time, especially when by doing so they seem to have a more than proper interest in what people get up to in the privacy of their own bedrooms. If you’re gay, you’re a sinner, if you’re living with someone not your wife, you’re a sinner, if you’re prone to solitudinal pleasure, you’re a sinner: come on, people, get a life of your own and stop getting vicarious thrills.