Whoever wants the Church to remain a showcase of religious traditions does not truly love the institution, Gozo Bishop Mario Grech warns in a pastoral letter.

“Spiritual aridity is also felt in our Church and at times the resistance to institutional renewal is tangible. We are far too complacent with the Church and within the Church – how we celebrate the sacraments, the respect towards the teaching of the Church… Excessive familiarity breeds abuses, even in holy matters,” the bishop says.

Mgr Grech’s pastoral letter is being read in Gozitan churches on the occasion of the Feast of the Assumption of Our Lady.

But the Gozitan bishop lays emphasis on what he describes as the evident “spiritual poverty” in the community.

“The absence of God has drained our life especially with regard to human rights – such as the right to life – in the family, in the workplace, and in the economy. Indifference to God is the reason the society of the third millennium is... so knowledgeable, yet shockingly short-sighted,” he says.

With God on the sidelines, the solutions on offer are hatching more serious problems. Many have been hurt because they were ignored and shunned. The result of a Godless universe is an impoverished humankind without any regard for each individual’s worth.

These days, he says, it is not only hard to find anyone with whom to engage in a constructive discussion about God, but it has become difficult to articulate what is true, good and just.

There are various reasons why God is no longer a priority. Spiritual “exhaustion” is rife among Christians while others are pastorally extinguished.

“For many, Christianity was a superficial gloss washed away by the first rains. Others are becoming enticed by diverse faiths with the risk of apostatising from Catholicism and joining some other church, another religion or a sect.

“There are also those who have lost their faith and courted worldly dogmas, which often exclude God – with secularism and laicism taking over as the ‘civil religions’,” he says.