Italy’s parliament, unlike ours, has long been a place of interest, humour and controversy, a parliament that normally (with Berlusconi being one notable exception) collapses like a pack of cards every time the slightest of breezes wafts along.

They have elected porn stars and transgender MPs, with one of the latter going up in arms (or is it legs?) over the news that one of his MP colleagues had proposed a third toilet arrangement for such persons (groan, I hate that politically correct word persons!), and of course this former man believed s/he should use the toilets s/he was transgendered into.

I was thinking about the signs on the new toilet doors, a pic of a man, a pic of a woman and a pic of a superwoman maybe because many of these persons (who more normally go from man to woman than woman to man... who says we aren’t the sex to be envied and emulated?) often have super legs, super body, super hair and the like, but how you would show all this graphically is beyond me.

Closer to home we have less to smile about, and we certainly don’t get enough local stories with a humorous edge. Newspapers are currently full of letters from people who want to watch the Da Vinci Code, which in super Catholic Malta has created more of a storm than the recent allegations of abuse against many children in Church homes run by nuns.

It was once again shocking to hear these tales of cruelty that these former children faced. Truly those who want to prey and bully know how to pick their prey: children who have nobody to stick up for them. I was just as shocked by the attitude of many who watched the programme, ‘Bondiplus’, which uncovered these allegations. These kids just had nobody to take up their cause for them, and yet motives are doubted now because they spoke up so late?

This is in fact what most people said on watching these allegations unfold on Bondiplus. The children are doubted, the motivation must be money and the like. But these stories have happened everywhere, in America, Australia and the UK.

What was most chilling about hearing these people tell their stories is how similar they all were to each other. I think we should be very grateful that the media is exposing these stories. And when, oh when, is the Church going to wake up and smell the coffee in this regard? The Catholic Church in the States is being rendered penniless by all the claims against it, and so it should be.

Church leaders hear of the abuse and move the abuser from one parish to another. It really is beyond belief, and the Church should automatically invite the police in whenever these alleged abuses happen.

Children from Church homes should be told on a regular basis what their rights are, should be told the police or a social worker is only a phone call away.

At least, the new Bishop of Gozo is reacting well to the allegations. But there is no excuse for this abuse and the Church must stop protecting abusers unless it wants the haemorrhage of the faithful to continue.

In the UK, the Home Affairs Minister had to resign because a gaffe in his department meant criminals were set free to rape again, set free to steal again, set free to generally abuse again. But when do Church leaders resign because of the failings of their reps? And what about all the Church leaders who just move abusers from one parish to another? Aren’t they as guilty as the UK Minister who had to resign?

The Da Vinci Code was a good read and I am looking forward to the movie. But it’s the movie of Maltese and Gozitan life that interests me much more. We should commend these kids in Church homes for their bravery and resilience.

We must compensate them for their suffering. And we must stop this hiding behind the skirts of the Church.

Sexual abuse in the Church is too prevalent, and it really is up to the Church to discover why this happens or whether in fact a celibate lifestyle is also partly to blame. The abuse must stop now. The abusers must be made to feel afraid.

Children who have had to suffer enough by not being brought up by their mums and dads deserve the full protection of the State, whose authority must rule over the Church, which has shown itself way to weak and yellow-livered when facing these kind of allegations all over the world, and now too in little Gozo...