Reading the Church’s Money Is Not Bishops’ Money, written by Mgr Anton Gauci (October 21), and a short letter in The Sunday Times (October 23), both in connection with the claim for financial compensation of victims of sexual child abuse by priests, have provoked me to write.

Whereas the silly short letter, which attempted to draw a comparison between the Church and a football association, could be simply laughed at were it not so cynical, the statements made by an official representative of the Maltese Church cannot be shrugged off without an appropriate reply.

Attempts to turn victims of crimes into moral wrongdoers when they seek financial compensation and using purely legal formalities to justify avoiding moral responsibilities is not new. During my studies in Germany in the late 1960s and early 1970s, I was confronted with similar discussions in connection with financial compensation by the German state for Nazi victims.

I fail to understand how the local Church has chosen to follow this deplorable custom when dealing with the claim for financial compensation by the victims of sexual child abuse by priests.

What a contrast to the Polish Catholic priest who is my personal hero and who I have looked up to ever since I was a boy. My father (he was an atheist, as I am) read to us, his children, among many others, the story of this young priest who, in 1940, in Poland, due to the chaos of war, found himself suddenly in charge of a group of Jewish children. When they were captured by the SS, he was left free to go because he was not a Jew. But this young priest decided otherwise. He remained with the children, comforting them till the last moment when they were all murdered.

He died with them.

Of course, he could have asked lawyers and they would have certainly told him that he had no legal obligation or responsibility whatsoever towards these children.

He did not ask, he acted.

He was a real Christian follower of Jesus.