What an insightful meditation topic Frank Muscat offered in his piece titled Sliding Down The Slippery Slope (June 9). One can read into it a whole bunch of truths that the official sanhedrim as he terms it, i.e. the officialdom within the Catholic Church, keeps ignoring and it is only when circumstances have come to the brink that somebody - "a holy man" or a true disciple of Christ - comes out with some deep insights for reform and Savonarola-fashion tries to steer the bark of Peter in the right way.

Oh! Yes, we just recently had a lot of flag waving at the overnight presence of the Pope in our midst. But deep down, the "official Church" in Malta, as elsewhere, has to do a lot more especially in the transparency field. I remember when in my pastoral work here and in parishes in the United States and elsewhere, how as a young naïve priest I was told to shut up when I saw clerics flouting many of the official teachings of the Catholic Church: gay priests, others with female partners, the now explosive sexual molestation of minors and a number of other things. But to me the thing that was the last straw was the insouciance with which Pope Paul VI's encyclical Humanae Vitae on birth control - which after all is magisterial teaching and binding as such - was completely "explained away" by many priests - and faithful - thus depriving same of its doctrinal value.

How many Catholics today follow Paul's magisterial teaching: the sex act among Christians must be open to procreation and nothing can in any way impede its fruition in the birth of a child! The many one- or two-children families here testify to the loyalty of the flag-waving Maltese. And we are only now beginning to unravel the extent of live-in partnerships.