My attention was drawn to a contribution penned by Daphne Caruana Galizia loaded with personal invectives, untruths, and gratuitous imputations in my regard, completely lacking in substance (“Black Shirts and Blacker Hearts” TMIS, 21 May). While I have resisted replying to Caruana Galizia’s previous attacks on me in the columns of The Malta Independent on Sunday, her latest tirade displays a bigotry and level of intolerance that would have made the likes of Danton, Marat and Robespierre blush.

Her intention of clearly associating me with organised fascism is beneath contempt, but then again, what else could one expect from a columnist who claims that she is “accustomed to making careful assessments of words and behaviour”. Had this farcical declaration really been the case, then Caruana Galizia would, doubtless have given due consideration to what I wrote in The Sunday Times a few months back in reply to Alternattiva Demokratika’s Edward Fenech where I described fascism as “a philosophical system of a pantheistic, naturalistic and neo-pagan nature where the State absorbs the life of the whole nation”. She would also have noted what I said publicly on 4 October last year in Valletta when I denounced violence in all shapes and forms and made a strong appeal against the dissemination of racial hatred. If she does not believe these words, she may care to consult The Times’ own Ariadne Massa who gave a reasonably accurate account of my address. Being a former Times columnist, Caruana Galizia would presumably, have little difficulty establishing contact with the latter person – assuming Daphne Caruana Galizia was interested in attaining a basic modicum of objectivity.

Regrettably, Caruana Galizia makes as careful an assessment of words and behaviour as the Pravda’s opinion writers did in their commentaries about Cardinal Mindzenty’s words and actions during the Hungarian anti-Soviet uprising. Furthermore, she couldn’t even get the name of the ANR correct, referring to it instead as the Assocjazzjoni Nazzjonali Repubblikana rather than the Alleanza Nazzjonali Repubblikana. Leaving that minor infraction aside, Caruana Galizia has the effrontery of accusing me of spreading fear and hatred of other Maltese who point out that I am “wrong-headed” (sic), and all this coming from someone who called me a “social misfit” in a previous contribution. The lady who never tires in spreading diatribes besmirching my integrity with monotonous regularity has systematically inveighed against me personally rather than against my supposed errors. Such is the erudition of the woman. Columnist she may well be, journalist she most certainly is not.

Well, this social misfit will never retort by stooping to the depths Caruana Galizia would appear to wallow in, but she does merit a real consideration, one based on prudence and temperance, two theological virtues she clearly fails to espouse. There is nothing less fitting for a critic to make accusations, above all violent ones against a person by putting words in his mouth and without first even taking the trouble of first reading that person’s declarations attentively. Her assertion that Martin Degiorgio and I “ like to think of themselves (i.e. ourselves) as the acceptable face of fascism – or in their (our) words, the “far right – “ is a blatant untruth. I have never, repeat never, said that I belonged to the “far right” and Caruana Galizia should do me the courtesy of quoting chapter and verse in her next epistle or unequivocally swallow her words.

Contrary to what she imputed to me, I desire for Malta that organic society based on the famous distinction drawn by Pope Pius XII between people and the masses, which was carried to its ultimate consequences by Blessed Pope John XXIII when he dealt with the principle of subsidiarity in the encyclical Mater et Magistra. I repudiate the false racist scientism of Nazism and Fascism and condemn the cruelties practised by Nazism and Fascism with all the energy they deserve. Unlike Daphne Caruana Galizia, I have never incited people to punch journalists instead of the former Police Commissioner, something that earned her the condemnation of the Press Club way back in 2001.

But for Caruana Galizia to state that I embrace classic fascism because the ANR tries to rally the people behind the Roman Catholic religion, and more importantly the culture and civilisation implanted in these islands by the Catholic Church is simply ludicrous. Indeed as Pope Saint Pius X stated, civilisation: “ is all the more true, all the more lasting, all the more fecund in precious fruits, the more purely Christian it is; it is all the more decadent, to the great misfortune of society the farther it withdraws from the Christian ideal. Thus by the intrinsic nature of things, the Church becomes also in fact the guardian and protector of Christian civilization (Encyclical Letter Il Fermo Proposito, 11 June 1905). Presumably, the columnist would have Pope Pius X in the dock standing next to me as she denounces us both as “classic fascists”. She also betrays an ignorance of fascism both in theory and in practice which is astounding to say the least. Either that or she conveniently forgot that it was the same Italian Fascist government which, subsequent to the signing of the Concordat with the Holy See, proceeded to violate its norms culminating in the proscription of the Catholic boy-scout movement and Catholic Action as formally organised entities.

Her contention that the Bishops of Malta with their recent Episcopal statement have pulled the rug from under my feet is equally tendentious. Given factual statements by other bishops in neighbouring countries like Italy, which are greatly at variance with those of our Episcopate on the subject of illegal immigration, such as that in 2003 by the present Bishop of Como, Mgr Alessandro Maggiolini that “ the right to invade Italy does not exist, nor does Italy have any duty to allow itself to be invaded”, then the faithful have a legitimate right to disagree with partial, unbalanced and one-sided Episcopal declarations that are potentially not in total conformity with the Supreme Magisterium of the Church on matters relating to immigration.

It is not a question of not insisting that those who are washed on our shores, or who are dragged into Maltese territory should not be treated as human beings with the inalienable rights that all humans beings enjoy as sons of God, as the local bishops stated – no doubt justly – but rather the fact that when making such affirmations, prudence should have dictated that a balanced and comprehensive appraisal of the illegal immigration issue should have been made by stating that charity which is not just and prudent is no longer charity.

Although every Bishop speaks on his own authority, conferred to him by Christ Himself – “He who hears you, hears Me” (Luke 10,16), his teaching does not have the privilege of infallibility that assists the Sovereign Pontiff. And since doctrinal differences have arisen among Malta’s bishops and a number of Italian bishops over the question of illegal immigration, the faithful are entitled under Canon Law to know Pontifical Teaching in order to follow it. Thus in the face of what I consider to be a relativistic dilution of the whole truth concerning the question of illegal immigration, as well as the formulation of one-sided criticisms of those opposed to this process, together with the establishment of a situation of complacent tolerance for what has clearly become a silent invasion, Catholic laymen are entitled to show their lack of accord with the teachings of their legitimate pastors with respect and veneration. Thus, while reiterating my convinced adherence to the Catholic Church and to the local Ecclesiastical Hierarchy in all the fields inherent to its Magisterium, I maintain the right, which the Church herself recognises, for Catholics to dissent, with respect and prudence on those points that I deem not to be wholly in conformity with said Magisterium. The foregoing is probably beyond Caruana Galizia’s intellectual grasp but it is a point worth making, and one by which I stand; no amount of “rug pulling” can distort this irrefutable fact.

Furthermore, it is rather odd that Caruana Galizia invokes the venerable Episcopate of these islands in what may only be termed charitably as her ranting, given that she has time and time again severely criticised Catholic teaching on such matters as sexual morality and so-called homosexual rights, conveniently forgetting that Christianity is an indivisible whole and that picking and choosing those aspects of that religion which suit one’s particular agenda leaves one open to criticism for being incoherent and inconsistent. And one can state without fear of being refuted that consistency and coherence of thought are definitely not Daphne Caruana Galizia’s forte.

There lived in Spain during the 1930s a communist rabble rouser, Dolores Ibarrurri, nicknamed “La Passionaria”, who earned a reputation for spewing hatred and invective against the Catholic Church, Catholic teaching and the Spain’s Christian traditions, egging her audiences to burn churches and convents, shoot priests and rape nuns with a vulgarity and gusto hitherto unseen in Europe. Mercifully, she did not have her way and Spain survived the Red onslaught. I for one, have only pity for local “columnists” who try to emulate her warped attitudes, and remind readers of The Malta Independent on Sunday that spreading psychological violence through the columns of the press will not, in the final analysis enhance one’s reputation or prestige in the country at large.