Having been brought up an ultra-orthodox Catholic – as an altar boy, a member of Malta’s Society of Christian Doctrine (M.U.S.E.U.M.), a former seminarian and a religious choir member of three different groups – fully immersed and committed to these character-building affiliations that leave an indelible mark on young minds – the current universal preoccupation with the scandalous behaviour of paedophiliac clergy is a deeply painful problem to confront.

What brought this scourge to worldwide scrutiny and utter condemnation is its widespread occurrence within our own religious circles – but not exclusively.

As a young lad growing up in Catholic Malta of the 1950s, whatever happened at the village level that would otherwise have raised local eyebrows was always kept hush hush. Society the world over in that era behaved in a similar manner. Children and young pubescents were not to be exposed to matters that ‘publicly’ went against societal accept­ance. And we meekly accepted our superiors’ directives while doubts lingered on subconsciously in our boyish minds.

Little did we, decades later, anticipate the sexual abuse upon minors that has hit the Catholic establishment with such embarrassing and damaging force. I, as one of several millions of nominally Catholic adherents, have given much thought to different aspects of this most worrying cover-up within the very pillars of our collective moral bulwark, the universal Catholic Church.

So, if I am a mere single adherent out of several million Catholics throughout the world, profoundly hurt by these dastardly anti-social revelations, why should I speak out and not remain silent like the rest of the masses?

As a writer-thinker, a communicator to the masses, I deem it my moral obligation to help eradi­cate all aberrations deleterious to society’s savoir-faire, provided one is well informed and harbours strong feelings about going concerns. Silence only spells approval or at the very least, capitulation to contra forces.

Having expressed my convictions here in no uncertain terms, I am convinced there are extra powerful and influential vested interests throughout society determined on bringing down the Catholic Church, through their relentless barrages aimed squarely at whatever smacks of Catholicity! If this were not the case, then why are all other perverse modes of human behaviour we see all around us, day in day out, tolerated, if in­deed not tacitly approved? How rife is such hypocrisy!

While I stand four square in full support of the current crackdown by authorities the world over, no matter where these horrid offences happen, I am baffled how different law courts worldwide accept evidence of sexual abuse, which allegedly happened several decades ago, without solid, concrete evidence.

Indeed, one questions how the paedophile clerics were never psychologically vetted out of the system during the long seven years’ training for the priesthood. Why would any young priestly aspirant with paedophiliac tendencies choose to follow a religious life, knowing they would be bound to celibacy and obedience?

Of course, fully-fledged clerics would once be acutely aware of the Church’s protection from public scrutiny. Also, these young men would have no wife and family responsibilities, no taxes to pay, no home to purchase and maintain, no fear of losing their livelihood, with a regular income guaranteed by their faithful congregations.

What a fanciful, pretentious life of aimless bliss this must be to the conniving cleric, irrespective of the harm and damage he inflicts upon his fraternal good clerics and the universal Church.

These psychopathic personalities occur in all walks and ranks of life. And neither are they confined exclusively to the male gender. It is time the public outcry unmasks the just-as-rampant abusive women instead of incessantly demonising the male gender alone. Throughout history we’ve had presidents, monarchs, prime ministers, popes, army generals, top scientists, philosophers, leading educators and people from every stratum of society who led their entire lives preying on the vulnerable.

Where nowadays do we encounter a cleric so devoted to his cause that he places himself last?

But there is yet another profound aspect which to my knowledge has not been aired publicly despite its serious implications upon Catholic doctrine. From moral, ascetic and dogmatic theological angles, every Catholic must be left bewildered. For these considerations have the power to shudder the very foundations of Catholic exegesis. How can the believing Catholic laity comprehend the Church’s silence on these fundamental scores?

These reflections, as mind boggling as they are, question the entire gamut of Catholic doctrine incorporating the very raison d’être of our Catholic religion, the faith and ultimately the continuity of the Church itself. I do not recall ever having read a single public reference by Church authorities to these thoughts surrounding the very essence, the heart of universal Catholicity.

An offending priest who, according to traditional Church doctrine, commits a sacrilegious mortal sin with every one of these offences is the same priest who says Mass and consecrates the host and wine into the body and blood of Jesus Christ.

The only conclusion one can reach from this travesty is that all those offending clerics, along with the Church hierarchy who protected them, do not truly believe what they preach, rendering their Catholic faith the greatest fraud in human history.

The Catholic Church has outgrown its original Christian mission with all its pomp, rituals, celebrations, titles, ranks, litur­gy, regalia and all the rest. Jesus never had any material wealth, no titles, no fancy clothing to enforce his authority.

As Malta’s national poet Dun Karm proclaimed in his epic poem Il-Jien u Lilhinn Minnu, at every step during his intellectual journey, in moments of doubt, he repeatedly retorted “emmen”, believe! Scolding his very self for having allowed the slightest doubt in his own Catholic faith, he revealed his human frailty from the deepest corners of his intellect and of his Christian soul.

Where nowadays do we en­counter a cleric so devoted to his cause that he places himself last?

That he lives primarily for the people he ministers to and for the glory of God alone?

With that keen sense of self-sacrifice, self-denial, self-discipline, while placing himself entirely in God’s care without a skerrick of doubt that Providence will look after him, unconditionally?

Does this total surrender to faith (emmen) no longer resonate within us? Roma immortale di martiri e di santi.

To leaders of all faiths without exception, this cri de coeur expressing the anguish, the angst out of the depths, des­cribed in John Donne’s poetry, this meagre voice emanating from the grass roots of society, is a reflection of so many hopeful yet disillusioned individuals who, even at this delicate mo­ment in history, still yearn for that blissful al di la that seems to be fading into that distant land of hope.

De profundis clamavi to the powers that be, in all countries, all civilisations, all traditions, all beliefs and non-beliefs, to skip all the vacuous rhetoric and get on with truly liberating mankind from the shackles of international hypocritical diplomacy.

This is a Times of Malta print opinion piece