Becoming Pope at such an advanced age was never going to be an easy mission for Benedict XVI. The demands of the role, the travel, the reality of living in an era where the media spotlight shines relentlessly into public figures' faces 24 hours a day would take their toll on anyone. It must be particularly difficult for a mild-mannered 82-year-old.
Since the turn of the year, his experience could well be compared to the journey to Calvary. He has been verbally battered, vilified and metaphorically crucified. Not just by the press, but by leaders of nations - including his native Germany - doctors, and even by some of his brethren bishops. So much so that he took the unprecedented step of publicly lamenting what he described as the "open hostility" towards him.
He has fallen along the way too. The Pope acknowledged this himself when he reflected on the "mistakes" in his decision to lift the excommunication of a bishop who had denied the Holocaust. Richard Williamson had in a television interview disputed that six million Jews died at the hands of the Nazis during World War II and claimed that none perished in gas chambers. He refused to withdraw the comments.
Little more than a month later the Pope was criticised by several EU states for saying that HIV/Aids was a "tragedy that cannot be overcome through the distribution of condoms, which can even aggravate the problem". The comment, impromptu and aboard an aircraft it should be pointed out, was especially sensitive since he was flying to Africa - where the disease is rife - when a question on the subject was put to him.
The German government again criticised him, saying "the Pope is making matters worse", but the fiercest attack came from The Lancet, a prestigious medical journal, which said he had "publicly distorted scientific evidence". Benedict once again seemingly backtracked when the Vatican published an edited text of his answer on its website which inserted the word "risks" before "aggravating the problem". But for many this did not go far enough.
It is true that the comments the press pick up on are a few words from a multitude; words that come from a human being who has not used them, because he is a human being, with mathematical precision. But it is no use, as the Church has a tendency to do and the Church in Malta is certainly no exception, simply to criticise the media. It must learn to live with, and make use of, this powerful animal it shares the lair with.
Nor is there any use denying certain realities. While the Church has a duty to preach its principles about the immorality of sex before marriage and contraception, it should do so in a way which recognises the context in which these things exist; while it has a duty to preach that divorce divides rather than unites a family, it should do this in a way which recognises the possibility that legislation permitting it in Malta may one day come into force - even if it does not.
It is only by being well-equipped to deal with all the eventualities, and talking about them in the right language, that the Church can continue to offer the sound guidance it has provided for centuries. The spirit of Easter will perhaps provide it with a renewed impetus.