Azzjoni Nazzjonali has criticised a homily in which Gozo Bishop Mario Grech questioned the government's detention policy, saying the bishop should "not to make the same mistake that NGOs are making where they see fit only to defend the rights of the immigrants but not those of the local population".

Mgr Grech chose the feast of Our Lady of Sorrows to criticise the detention of immigrants whose only crime, he said, was escaping persecution in their country.

This was the first time that one of the Church's leaders has attacked the detention policy, which is the one thing both major political parties agree on but which has been questioned by local NGOs and international humanitarian and civil rights' organisations.

However, the bishop's words did not go down well with AN.

"We expect people in his position to defend not only minority rights but also the culture that they have inherited from his own family. It is called love of one's country," the party said, describing the bishop's appeal as making "little sense".

The party also suggested that Mgr Grech may not be seeing the full dimension of the problem since "not many immigrants wander about in Gozo".

"If all the immigrants in the open centres and the detention centres in Malta, and there are around 5,000 of them, are transferred to Gozo, which community would they displace? Would the bishop still say they should be allowed to roam free?" AN said.

Mgr Grech said long-term detention as applied in Malta led asylum-seekers to mental breakdown and did not prepare them to look benevolently upon the society in which they were to live until the time came when they were able to return to their country or to move on.

"The time has come to ask ourselves in all honesty: Is it possible that a civilised country such as ours, having the values we think we are defined by, sees nothing wrong in keeping locked in detention women and men who committed no crime and who are only here because they are seeking another country's protection?" Mgr Grech said.