I have been following the Archbishop’s work from afar over the years that he has been in his current position. I have agreed with him on so many things. I often find that my Catholic upbringing has made me more compassionate and kind towards other people, qualities he has so often promoted either in word or deed.

He is, from where I stand, a very kind and loving person.

And why wouldn’t he be? It is a fact that, according to Christianity, God is love and, therefore, an act of love is an act of God. It takes a very sympathetic person to live that example in life.

However, that compassion that he possesses seems to be suspended when the topic of LGBT people comes up.

This is not surprising at all.

Human beings are, in fact, very likely to carry out horrid acts of violence provided the instructions come from an authority, in his case, the Pope. Likewise, people who hear his words will do the same, though without any need to protect their public image or do good PR they may easily go much further.

What is disturbing is that, while I am sure he is aware of such a phenomenon regarding orders from authorities, he fails to see it at work within himself.

Why? Is that his idea of love? Does he know what it’s like to be at the mercy of a gatekeeper? And if so, why does he now do to others what he would not want done to himself?

Do heterosexuals really need to exclude people in order to feel special? If their marriage relies on excluding others to survive, that isn’t exactly the best foundation to build upon.

Had he been born gay and grown up to experience what it is like living in a homophobic society, his compassion would find it hard to suspend itself

He currently holds a very powerful position in Malta. Whether the majority of the country still goes to church is neither here nor there. The fact is that he has a voice and a very influential establishment behind him.

This establishment is a religion, so that means that people ‘have to’ agree with what he says or else they are not considered proper members of this religion and are accused of being ‘supermarket Christians’.

It is he and the Church that give the likes of Donald Trump weight and we all know how disastrous that is.

The Alt-Right may be a twisted form of right-wing rhetoric resurrected from the 1930s and now plaguing politics in Europe but it doesn’t take very long to find that such rhetoric has its foundations in Christianity. It is the strong elements of the Alt-Right that are currently congratulating him, in fact. He will find it difficult to distance himself from them, for the reason I have just mentioned.

I wish the Archbishop were gay. I really do. Had he been born gay and grown up to experience what it is like living in a homophobic society, his compassion would find it hard to suspend itself in the face of such cruel orders from above. Sure, he may ‘condemn’ homophobic hate crimes but that would just be hypocritical.

His words are the spark to a common ‘moral panic’ that has, time and again, shown to only lead the same way as racism and chauvinism.

What is also not surprising is that he still sees the need to claim that my relationship is somehow cheapening that of a heterosexual couple.

It is difficult to see why that might be, especially when such an opinion comes from an institution made up exclusively of people who have, more or less, been single their entire lives and are grossly underqualified to lecture people on sexual relations and their repercussions. I may be powerful in bed but if I had the power to ruin all heterosexual relationships in the world I am pretty sure I would have an altogether more lucrative job.

It is government’s duty to make sure that all laws include all citizens and that all citizens are given the same chance to share in the human experience. If laws don’t, then it is the government’s duty to make sure they do by changing them and rewriting them.

So far, none of this concerns him.

Science is now very clear that marriage equality is not only a good thing but beneficial for a society and that same-sex parents are perfectly capable of raising children as well as their heterosexual counterparts.

The struggles come from the homophobia aimed at such families by people who, in turn, feel justified because they have the Church’s backing as far as they are concerned.

Yes, I wish the Archbishop were gay.

That way he would be able to see the situation for what it really is rather than what he thinks it should be.

Isn’t that what Jesus would do?

You know, Good Samaritan, love thy neighbour and all that.

Edward Caruana Galizia is an actor and studied psychosocial studies at Birkbeck University of London.