Bishop Mario Grech has urged the Church not to fear preaching in favour of charity and justice for the poor.

In a hard-hitting homily on Sunday, the Gozo Bishop said Christians could not be indifferent to the poor even if they lived in a society that negated poverty.

Addressing the congregation in Xagħra on the occasion of the feast of Our Lady of Victories, Mgr Grech cited statistics showing that 15 per cent of the population was living on the edge of poverty.

“Poverty is an evangelical, religious and moral challenge,” he said, adding that, like Christ, the Christian community should have its ears open to the poor.

It is as if poverty itself had become a crime

Mgr Grech said the poor were suffering in the silence of their homes and, sometimes, in public but society noticed them only when they broke the law. It is as if poverty itself had become a crime, he added.

“If the economy is doing badly, we worry a lot; if somebody shoots on a protected bird (something that should not be done), it stirs controversy. But then we witness the poor who not only have no food and water but not even a future, like immigrants and refugees, and for many it is as if nothing is happening.”

Mgr Grech urged the Church not to fear speaking in favour of the poor even if there were those within it who did not understand this message.

Quoting Archbishop Oscar Romero, who was assassinated in El Salvador in 1980 for standing up to the country’s regime, Mgr Grech said: “I am happy that our Church is persecuted because of its actions in favour of the poor.”