The Catholic Church has been conspicuous by its absence from the debate about the racism that is revealing itself in Malta. There has been no excoriation from the pulpit of those who regard themselves superior to others merely because of their skin colour (which, incidentally, is brown not white). There has been no strongly-worded pastoral letter from the archbishop, to be read out in all churches during all masses, spelling out to the congregation that many of the sentiments being expressed in the public arena, and worse ones still in private gatherings, go directly against the teachings of Jesus Christ. If the church teaches us to struggle against our natural inclination towards lust, envy, anger and other negative emotions – which are seen as sinful in themselves – then it should also teach the faithful to battle against their fear, hatred and suspicion of strangers from a different ethnic or religious background.

There have been calls from all over for the Church to do this, from people who are credible and influential pillars of society, and from those who lead more ordinary lives but who are bewildered that the very organization which should serve as a beacon of Christian light is standing on the sidelines and pretending not to notice.

So it is a relief to know that at last, the Pastoral Formation Institute, which was recently set up by the Church to transmit the messages of the Diocesan Synod to the people, will tackle the issue of the emergence of racism in our midst. Two years ago, the Diocesan Synod had addressed Maltese racism in one of its documents, and had predicted what is happening now. Yet then its views were ignored or passed over, not just because Church communications are rarely presented in a manner that makes them media-friendly, but also because racism was not a hot topic and was something which simmered undetected beneath the surface of our apparent civilization. That synod document described racism as “a structural sin diametrically opposed to our creation as equal, in the image of our creator.”

This is all well and good. However, the Church should take care that its messages about racism are not clothed entirely in religious symbolism and context. The Christianity of Maltese Catholics, unlike for example the Christianity of Nordic Protestants, is very tenuous indeed, and very many Maltese wear it as a badge of identity rather than espousing it as a religious faith. This is certainly the case with the fundamentalist Christian Right that has grown rapidly in Malta over the past few years, and whose Christianity is little more than a form of religious fascism that seeks to control others and to impose their will even on those who may not share their beliefs.

Talk about sins and creators will automatically push the ‘switch off’ button in the minds of those readers and listeners who, like me, have a Christian morality but no particular fondness for the language of doctrine classes or the salad dressing of Catholicism. It is enough, surely, for the Church to tell its followers that racism is wrong because hatred and suspicion of others based on the colour of their skin is wrong, and that all human beings are equal before God and the law. The Church would also do well to go directly to the teachings of Christ and quote them, because they are far, far more powerful than any amount of Catholic interpretation and quibbling. Also, people like them – which is not surprising given that Christ was possibly the most effective communicator in history.

It is my understanding that those who were taught morality solely in the context of sin and Catholicism grew up to be either immoral or amoral when they ceased to believe in the tenets of the faith, keeping Catholicism only as a façade that gave them the identity of a ‘Maltese Catholic’. I know several people like this, who justify what others would see as immorality, amorality, or lack of principles and ethics with the argument that it is not a sin (and anyway, they don’t believe in sin) and nor is it against the law. When someone points out to them that it is wrong all the same, they argue back that who is to decide what is wrong and what is right? I believe in teaching children morality outside the context of religion, so that should they grow up to ditch their religion, they will not ditch their morality with it.

When the Church speaks, it does not speak only to practising Catholics. It has a powerful voice in Maltese society, and it is listened to even by non-believers and the lapsed. Because of this, when it speaks about an issue that affects Maltese society as a whole, rather than just the members of its practising flock, it has to widen its terminology and drum home the message in non-theological terms. Racism is just such an issue. Racism is wrong whether you are Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, Jewish, or of no religion at all. The Church in Malta should not speak about it in the same terms and tone that it uses to address a moral issue which affects only practising Catholics, like contraception or divorce.

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When millions of Jews were being persecuted and killed all over Europe 60 years ago, the Catholic Church failed to speak out and serve as a beacon of light in the evil darkness of Nazism and Fascism. For that, it was justly subjected to a great deal of criticism and condemnation, suffering accusations as diverse as a deliberate lack of support for Jews, considered religious ‘enemies’ over and above the fact that they were persecuted human-beings, and lack of bravery in seeking to survive by currying favour with the Nazis. It was left to individual priests to act with iconic bravery, and with heroism that would be recognized as such even outside the confines of Christianity. Many of them were dragged off to the concentration camps to die with the people they tried to save.

In the 1987 film Au Revoir, Les Enfants, which won seven Cesars and was nominated for two Oscars, the French film director Louis Malle paid an autobiographical tribute to one such man, Pere Jean, his headmaster at a boarding-school run by Catholic monks, just outside Paris in 1940. Pere Jean went to the concentration camp with three of his pupils, Jewish boys whom he had been sheltering after their parents were killed. French collaborators – portrayed by Malle as far more despicable than the Nazis, and in this precise morality he is correct – had passed on information that the monks were sheltering three Jewish boys at their school, but the Nazis could not identify them because Pere Jean had registered them under typical French names. Each time the Gestapo came calling, he insisted that they were wrong, and that there were no Jewish boys at the school. Finally, the Gestapo lavished attention on the school creep (every school has a couple of pupils like this), making him feel special. He spied for them and identified the Jewish boys. One of them, who had been given the name of Jean Bonnet, was Malle’s best friend. They were just 12 years old. Louis Malle, represented in Au Revoir, Les Enfants as the boy Julien Quintin, watches in shock as his kindly headmaster, together with his best friend and two other boys, are taken away by the Gestapo, never to be seen again. It was a life-marking episode he went on to describe as the loss of innocence and the discovery of ignorance. Pere Jean, maintaining his composure to the end so as not to disturb his pupils further, turns to them and speaks the words which make the title of the film. But of course, it wasn’t au revoir but adieu. After the film’s premier showing, the lights went on to reveal Malle’s face streaked with tears, a full 47 years later.

In the moral gulf between men like Pere Jean and other men like Norman Lowell and Philip Beattie lies a swamp in which many struggle in ethical and philosophical confusion. The Church’s job is to teach them that Pere Jean was by far the better man, and why. The reason why does not lie in the fact that he was a monk who espoused truly Christian principles, but in that he was an extremely brave man whose conscience did not allow him to send three 12-year-old boys to their deaths so as to save himself. He protected them, and then he went with them. Amoral cynics will argue that, since he and they died all the same, he might as well have saved his own life. And this is another moral swamp in which many drown. The point is that even if Pere Jean had not been a Catholic monk, he would still have been morally obliged to protect those boys in his care from the Gestapo and death, even if he risked his own life to do so. The Church, when finally it begins to transmit its messages in the current racist furore, should be careful not to treat racism as it does contraception – as something which concerns only the Catholics of the flock who risk hell after death.