Helena Dalli MP (August 20) is one of those people, and there are many of them today, who think they can dictate to the Church how and when it is allowed to state her teaching openly.

For a moment Dr Dalli must have forgotten that the Church, a divine institution, has outlived for 2,000 years all her persecutors, even those among her own children who tried to harm her from within, and is still a living witness to Christ’s words: “Be not afraid, in the world you will have trouble, but remember, I have conquered the world.”

However, this is not why I am writing. Dr Dalli makes a very simple statement answering a question she herself puts. She writes: “Easy solutions? Surely, the Nazarene would not have put it so insensitively”. I would like to believe that Dr Dalli did not use this title disparagingly, as the Romans did. Very probably, out of reverence, she did not want to write the name of the Nazarene. Yes, she is talking about Jesus Christ.

Maybe all she wanted was, as many others do today, to cut him down to size to suit her purpose, and so she preferred not to name him. What she missed are his words. And since He is the Truth, his words are the same today, as they were yesterday and will be forever. Had he been here today, he would not have taught or preached otherwise.

To those who have sinned he would have said as the bishops said: “Go and sin no more.” We are living in a corrupt world, as corrupt as the world in Jesus’s days. And he came to save man from corruption and death. If those at the helm want to save the world let them heed his words and put back humanity on the right track. He came to make us free. In him alone can man enjoy the true freedom of the children of God.