From Mgr A. Gauci

Daphne Caruana Galizia was kind enough to quote me as saying “why would we say something? We know nothing about what happened. Certainly I don’t think anything grave was done.”

Then she remarked that “the trouble with these people is that they don’t think their priest is answerable to anyone, or that he should be protected because he is a priest”.

I am afraid I have not been quoted exactly, and not merely because, as far as I can remember, I did not use the plural pronoun “we”! More-over, does Mrs Caruana Galizia expect that, during my Mass, I should have resorted to “mentioning the biggest case ever to hit Victoria after the World War II bombs”?

No, Mrs Caruana Galizia, you know Mgr Gauci very little if you think you are right in including me among the “people” who “don’t think their priest is accountable to anyone, or that he should be protected because he is a priest”.

According to Mrs Caruana Galizia, Fr Mercieca has ensured that everyone in the USA “is also left with the impression that we are a bunch of in-bred perverts who feed our boys to priests for a little light fondling”. What “impression” of their own cake does Mrs Caruana Galizia think “everyone in the USA” has after the countless stories of pederasty we have heard about as occurring in the USA in recent years? Will “everyone in the USA” be “scandalised” at the Gozo priest’s story more than they were “scandalised” in the USA for years?

All priests, and all Christians, should be against what the Gospel calls scandalising little ones. I even say “all human beings” should be against it!

Like Mrs Caruana Galizia, and by no means less, I am all out against pederasty. Pope John Paul II said plainly that “there is no place in the Church for paedophiles”.

Nevertheless, my point is still that of forgiveness. Not forgiveness of the sin itself, but forgiveness of the sinner, once he or she repents. That is Christ’s and God’s policy, as manifestly taught in the Sacred Scriptures.

Let us not quote Christ in one of his precepts only. We are to follow all his precepts, not least that of forgiveness of the sinner. The undersigned, for one, would have long been in the abyss, had the good Lord not forgiven his many trespasses.

Christ not only forgave Peter, but also made him head of His Church, let alone those clear words of an infinitely merciful Christ: “He that is without sin, let him first cast a stone at her.” (John 8, 7). This was the case of the woman taken in adultery and presented to Christ by the Pharisees!

Yes, we should do our utmost to defend children from “perpetrators”, even by threatening and also applying the sanctions of the Church as embodied in Canon Law. It is only fair and just. Not only for the benefit of the “victims”, but also for society and the culprits themselves.

Anton Gauci