My article of July 2 on The Need For A Church-State Concordat obviously left Richard. A. Micallef bothered and bewildered (July 13). How else otherwise to explain his inarticulate reply?

My article, coming hard on the Archbishop’s announcement that the Maltese Church had spent almost €200,000 in underwriting the anti-divorce campaign, coupled with his wish that it had spent more, raised two issues.

First, that the Archbishop himself had made it clear in 2008 that while he considered the Catholic Church in Malta had a valid contribution to make to the divorce debate, the Church would not seek to interfere – as opposed to participate – in the process since it was fundamental to ensuring that legislators and society were not placed under duress when considering the issue. A spirit of democratic dialogue stemming from a willingness to be open-minded and open to persuasion should prevail, he said.

If the Maltese Church had stuck within the parameters the Archbishop himself had set, instead of engaging in a campaign of threats, unstated and not so unstated, about “committing mortal sin” and “offending Jesus Christ”, nobody could have had a quarrel with the Church’s conduct.

But this, combined secondly with the Maltese Church’s expenditure of €180,000 – without expressing an iota of regret or contrition apparently about the disproportionate nature of this expenditure by a Church which is no longer rich – on an essentially civil political campaign, when we all know that there are many desperate cases of human hardship supported by the Church who will not now benefit from this misplaced largesse, led me to conclude that the Maltese Church had, on this issue, erred. Mr Micallef may disagree with that judgement, but if so I should be glad to know whether he thinks that €180,000 was a cost-effective use of scarce resources.

Of course, the Church was perfectly within its rights to join in the public debate. But the Church cannot claim that its doctrine should automatically have the force of law; only that its voice should be heard. The way it conducted itself in the referendum campaign went well beyond what the Archbishop himself had set as the benchmark, as well as leading to financial overkill.

My article was not a diatribe against the Church, but fair comment.

The crux of it was that in the wake of the divorce referendum there is now an urgent need to recalibrate Church-state relations in our country.