Long-term reforms that take time to be implemented should take precedence over immediate projects, Gozo Bishop Mario Grech has advised politicians, adding that Malta’s size meant it was easily blinded by provincialism and parochialism.

Mgr Grech was speaking yesterday at a conference organised by the Nikol Cauchi Foundation and Centesimus Annus.

Politics could be a country’s topmost resource that promotes human dignity and the common good, Mgr Grech said.

Conversely, it could also be abused to the extent that it breeds injustice and spreads sadness.

There needs to be a greater effort to create a larger sense of state

He reiterated Pope Francis’s prayer for more politicians endowed with the ability to enter into authentic dialogue and who strive to cure the roots of evil and not its outward surfaces.

Society should also strive towards unity despite people having different opinions, religious and political beliefs and ideologies.

Conflicts were not necessarily bad in themselves because, if addressed responsibly, they could create the opportunity to spread “the communion of differences”, retaining human dignity at the fore.

Quoting the current Pope, he cautioned politicians against making promises and proposals that could not be delivered.

Sophism, or false arguments aimed at deceiving, was a dangerous reality. As a consequence, it led to separating truth from freedom, individual ethics from public ethics and natural law from positive law.

The Pope, Mgr Grech said, also urged politicians to direct their attention to global issues, while not neglecting local concerns. Perspectives should be broadened to encapsulate the common good.

“We feel there needs to be a greater collective effort to create a larger sense of state, to have a greater sense of civilisation, to keep us from enclosing ourselves in partisan politics that often doesn’t allow us to seek truth,” he said, quoting the bishops’ Lenten pastoral letter.