With the no confidence debate (in Parliament), we have witnessed on the media and social networks the behaviour or misbehaviour of some of our noted national wits who mostly happen to be Church schools old boys of a Christian Democrat orientation. I am afraid that the venom revealed in the dispute was neither Christian nor democratic. The consideration of losing or gaining governing power made some go haywire. The Prime Minister himself had to intervene to appeal to the contributors to act as Christian gentlemen and gentlewomen. The institutions, responsible for the education of their ex-alumni, stood dumb.

This is yet another example of the failure in the Church schools education theory. Other examples are tax evasion and the divorce issue. These examples prove that the Church is being used and taken for a ride. Its message is being disregarded, misused and abused. It seems that as the Church sets up new schools and institutes for Catholic studies, the Maltese are becoming more anti-Catholic and atheistic.

One day, while I was waiting to be summoned at a very busy local bank’s legal office, a noted Maltese lawyer, who like me was also in the queue, remarked: “The Jesuits have always taught me that the well-off are the almighty” (I would say that vice-versa reasoning is also adopted.)

This may be true in an agnostic school. However, these principles were not included in the Holy Creed or The Lord’s Prayer that I was taught at my humble state school and MUSEUM.

Is there a variation in the teaching of the Church that depends on the instructor or the intelligence of the student?

May I urge the Maltese Church, that claims the formation of our national wits, to call on its ex-alumni to behave as genuine Catholics? I cannot help but note the irony in the Maltese Church adminstration, that our respected sheperd, the Archbishop, and most of his fine deputies come from a profane state schooling.