Preparations for the Pope's visit are "good, just and fitting" but should not be about keeping up appearances or "whitewashing over our problems just to put on a good show", the Church's Environment Commission said.
The commission yesterday called on the Maltese to focus on the pastoral scope of the visit rather than the welcome.
It said the Pope's message of solidarity as an antidote to the ecological crisis was addressed to everyone and should not be ignored just because it came from the Vatican.
It was baffling that people tried to vociferously discredit the Church's teachings because of its "highly-publicised imperfections" while not batting an eyelid over issues such as abortion, extreme poverty, hunger, environmental degradation and displaced workers and refugees.
It said the Church's methodology on such issues was to start from within, "from the heart of every believer", to promote lifestyle changes that respected the community of life.
It said problems had arisen every time the Church's focus drifted from the principle that "our duties towards the environment flow from our duties towards ourselves and other people".
It added that globalisation should be characterised by a global effort to ensure a good quality of life for present and future generations. This way, God's plan for creation - where humans lived in harmony with each other and with their surrounding environment - could be re-established.
The commission praised Pope Benedict XVI's appeal to have a profound long-term review of our model of development and said this had particular relevance to a small country like Malta with its limited resources and close-knit community.
It stressed the importance of putting an end to the illegal extraction of groundwater, following the harsh reality check that overexploitation of fresh water resources rendered the situation almost beyond recovery.
It said Malta still lacked an adequate and long-term freshwater management policy.
"Finding solutions is essentially an issue of good governance, morality, social justice and public order. All sectors of our society, including the local Church, should strive to do their part in solving this and other issues, and, therefore, promote a just society that promotes integral human development."
The commission concluded that the Pope's visit would initiate a renewed national commitment towards ensuring that integral human development became an inherent theme in all development plans and policies.