Archbishop Mgr Mercieca was careful in his choice of words last Thursday, but the overall implication is that a woman’s place is in the home and that her first responsibility is the family, not the career.

Speaking during the Pontifical Mass held at St John’s Co-Cathedral in Valletta to mark the 42nd anniversary of Malta’s Independence, Mgr Mercieca said that it would be damaging “if young parents cannot raise their children properly because, for example, they both have to work to be able to meet their home expenses, or if an environment is created whereby the mother who does not work to dedicate her time to her young children is depicted as being a failure”.

In other words, what Mgr Mercieca was saying is that the upbringing of a family comes first and foremost, and that young women should sacrifice their career to raise children, at least until they are old enough to take care of themselves. “We should understand and support in a concrete way (a woman’s) noble decision (to stay at home),” Mgr Mercieca said.

Mgr Mercieca did not say that women should stay at home to raise children, but he did imply that this is what should be done. Such comments will no doubt raise a few questions, especially from women groups that are striving for equality between the sexes in all respects and in all circumstances.

Such a vision also contrasts sharply with the government’s intentions to encourage more women to work and for women to return to work as quickly as possible after giving birth. Incentives have been offered to persuade young women to leave the home and find a job, before and after they have children.

It was only last week that statistics published by Eurostat showed that the employment scenario in Malta is remarkably different from that in other European countries. And one stark difference is the fact that the gap between male and female employment in Malta is the biggest in the EU25.

While male employment in Malta is around the 73 per cent mark, only one third of women aged between 15 and 64 have a job, making the 40 per cent difference the largest in all European states. The fact that only 33 per cent of Maltese women work also puts us in the lower rung of this particular category.

In an editorial on the Eurostat statistics, this newspaper last week commented that “for a long time it was thought that the place of women was at home. The Church’s ideas in this respect did not help much (to encourage more women to work)”. Judging by the Archbishop’s words, we were not far from the truth.

The thing is that the way children are brought up is not necessarily linked to whether the mother works or not. It does not necessarily follow that children whose parents both work will not get a proper upbringing. Nor does it necessarily follow that children whose mother does not work do get raised in the best possible way.

Many might argue that mothers who work find little time to spend with their children. But, again, it is not how much time a family spends together that is important, but what they do together in that time.

Children who spend six hours with their mother every day – between school and bed-time – might not be getting the same level of attention as those children who are with their mother for just two hours. And those children whose mother works might then spend the whole weekend doing things with her (and their father) while those whose mother is at home never get to talk to her because she is always busy around the home.

A mother’s time with her children is reduced when she works. The most important thing is that the time they have together is spent properly.