The Pope has come and gone and everything has been written about this historic visit. I would just like to bring to readers' attention that the Pope has revealed the hidden agenda of the do-gooder organisations which militate on behalf of so-called refugees. According to timesofmalta.com in one of his speeches on Sunday, the Pope said:

"On account of its geographical position in the heart of the Mediterranean, many immigrants arrive on Malta's shores, some fleeing from situations of violence and persecution, others in search of better conditions of life."

Those who "flee from situations of violence and persecution" are the genuine refugees. They are covered by international law, particularly the Geneva Refugee Convention (1951). Those "in search of better conditions of life" are the economic immigrants who have no right to enter a foreign country unless this country wants them and needs them.

NGOs have been confusing these two categories. They plead on behalf of refugees - hence the sob stories we often read. Indeed, the R in JRS and UNHCR stands for refugees.

Then they try to extrapolate from refugees to all kinds of immigrants, thus trying to burden Malta with people who have no right at law to be here and whom Malta does not need.

As regards economic immigrants, it has been said often enough that a country with more than seven per cent unemployed (Malta's case at present) does not need to import foreign labour. Indeed, some bigger and richer European countries have been giving monetary incentives to encourage even their legal immigrants to go back to their own country.

Furthermore, I cannot understand why it is charitable to uproot these economic immigrants from their native countries and attract them towards Europe where they will be second-class citizens.

Would it not be more just, and not only charitable, to do everything to create the "better conditions of life" in the African countries where they come from?