On August 25, while Dom Mintoff was lying in state, shortly to be honoured with a funeral Mass conducted by Archbishop Paul Cremona at St John’s Co-Cathedral in Valletta, I was being driven to TVM to participate in a live programme about recollections of Mr Mintoff.
Arriving at the studio I was handed a hard copy of what a Catholic priest, Fr Alexander Lucie-Smith, had penned three days earlier in the electronic edition of The Catholic Herald, a British newspaper.
I am writing this one week later to give myself time to calm down about the misinformation that this man of the cloth, with not an iota of Christian charity in this writing, strongly peppered with personal antagonism spread about Mr Mintoff.
Mr Mintoff died on August 20 and was therefore definitely unable to correct this priest’s cruel barbs, misinformation and gross misinformation for the uninitiated and uninformed.
It struck me as being reminiscent of the behaviour of certain exponents of former totalitarian propaganda.
This anointed man supposedly ordained to spread the good news of the Gospels instead vented his personal spleen.
He also tarnished facts. Fr Lucie-Smith lambasted Mr Mintoff for his allegedly direct association with the consultants who drew up the Habbard Report and the uglification of Valletta and the Three Cities after the war.
Obviously, this moral theologian has not read the report. He built his accusations on a stiff dose of economy with the truth.
To confuse and confound readers and innocent and gullible people
Fr Lucie-Smith made reference to an attack on the Archbishop’s Curia in Floriana in 1984, attributing this event to the direct and indirect instigation of Mr Mintoff.
This priest goes on to list Mr Mintoff’s association with certain international characters described by some – when convenient – as undesirables.
This clergyman seems to have forgotten that his Master and Mentor, Jesus of Nazareth, was also maligned when, in order to pass his message on earth ate with sinners, consorted with prostitutes and performed miracles on the holy day of the Sabbath!
Fr Lucie-Smith should go to retreat, pray for his sins of commission and omission, and being repentant and absolved, pray for the soul of Dom Mintoff, as any truly good priest should do.