Dear Pope Francis, as Archbishop Emeritus Paul Cremona leaves the helm of the Church in Malta to pave the way for you to appoint his successor, please allow me to address an open letter to you as a humble member of the Church in Malta.

I would like to start with underlining something that most probably you are already very much aware of. The large majority of priests in Malta work in genuine communion with their bishop, free from any temptations of intellectual pride or showmanship, and every day do a lot of often hidden but much valuable work which, without making headlines, causes the Kingdom of God to advance in people’s minds and hearts.

Many priests exercise their ministry in an authentic, discreet, dedicated, tenacious and creative way. They deservedly have our admiration, encouragement and prayers, more so when one remembers that today’s priests are often also tested by a kind of environment that may subject priestly activity to the temptations of fatigue and discouragement.

With regard to the archbishop’s premature departure, I suppose only God knows the whole story and the full truth about the settings and the undercurrents throughout his eight-year stint at the helm, which ended with him asking you to relieve him of the responsibility due to health reasons.

My hope is that, notwithstanding your busy schedule, you will find time to personally review the realities and challenges facing the Archdiocese of Malta before deciding on who should be Cremona’s successor, hopefully an evangelically-prudent, wise and strong person who is, first and foremost, a man of God.

It is well known you expect bishops to welcome magnanimously all those entrusted in their pastoral care, walk with them and stay with them. You also expect to see bishops adopting a style of service that reflects humility, even austerity and essentiality because pastors are not men with the ‘psychology of princes’.

At the same time, bishops need the humble and consistent loyalty of all priests, their established co-workers. I therefore hope that the new pastor you choose will be an inspirational spiritual leader who, among other things, fully shares your views about the true mission of priests.

The chosen one should hopefully be an evangelically-prudent, wise and strong person

Speaking on inner freedom, on June 6, 2013, you rightly said that, first of all, this means “being free from personal projects”, “free from some of the tangible ways in which, perhaps, you may once have conceived of living your priesthood: from the possibility of planning your future or from the prospect of staying for any length of time in a place of ‘your own’ pastoral action”.

You also gave priests very sound advice: “You must be careful not to make either your own fulfilment or the recognition you might receive both inside and outside the ecclesial community a constant priority. Rather, your priority should be the loftier good of the Gospel cause and the accomplishment of the mission that will be entrusted to you… Careerism is a form of leprosy; a leprosy. No careerism, please.”

My feelings spring from my membership of the Church in Malta and also as a person who, for about 20 years worked as a journalist for two Church-related newspapers of general interest, and then another 22 years as the public relations officer of the Archbishop’s Curia, including 28 months during Cremona’s tenure.

I have always felt that morality resides in the choices human beings make and execute. Indeed, I never doubted that good journalism and good PR for the Church meant doing the right thing in the right way, in full allegiance with the Church. I suppose such criteria apply to one and all in the Church, more so who decide to dedicate their whole lives to serve Christ and his Church.

Pope Benedict XVI is on record saying that the priesthood must never represent a way to achieve security in life or to attain social position. “Anyone who aspires to the priesthood in order to increase his personal prestige and power has radically misunderstood the significance of this ministry. Anyone whose main goal is to realise an ambition of his own, to achieve success, will always be a slave to himself and to public opinion.

“In order to be noticed, he will have to adulate; he must say what people want to hear, he must adapt to changing fashions and opinions. In this way, he will deprive himself of the vital relationship with truth, reducing himself to condemning tomorrow what he praises today,” the very experienced Benedict said on June 20, 2010.

I am sure you will agree with this wise pastoral guidance of your predecessor. I am also sure you will confirm that lack of vigilance can make a shepherd lukewarm, distracted and forgetful, and that it can seduce him with the prospect of career, the lure of money and compromises with the spirit of the world.

I thank you for your patient and kind pastoral attention.

Thank you also for your vision for the Church and your mission to enable us to experience “the caress of the mercy of Jesus Christ on my sin”.

Charles Buttigieg is a former PRO of the Church in Malta.