Methinks that John Micallef doth protest too much (Falsehood And Sophistry, November 27).

If, like Alice in Wonderland, he says that words mean only what he says they do, and that therefore my reading of his defence of priests who commit abuse against children was mistaken, then I would naturally withdraw any such aspersions.

But let us at least be thankful for small mercies.

Mr Micallef has finally come round to admitting that he does see “very clearly the sins of the Church” – something which in all his writings on clerical abuse to date, he has staunchly avoided condemning.

May I not therefore also recognise “the sins” to which he refers without being accused of being anti-Church?

It is a pity that he could not brace himself for the next logical step in the process of enlightenment by welcoming with me the government’s action to introduce long overdue legislation which would make clerical abuse subject to secular, not canon, law. This is a ground-breaking step forward to re-balance Church-state relations in Malta.

This was the whole point of my Talking Point on November 16. Instead, he chose to interpret my words as an attack on the Church.

It was not, and only religious bigots could have read it that way.

Editor’s note:

Correspondence on this matter is now closed.