It is of course perfectly true, as Daphne Caruana Galizia says (TMID, 8 February), that for many people, being Catholic seems to mean nothing more profound than “siding with the Pope”, much as one would side with this or that football team, rather than abiding by what the Catholic Church teaches.

But then Daphne should remember that One alone is Good, and that is God, and One alone is truly Christian, and that is Christ Himself. The rest of us merely “struggle”, as the current British ambassador to the Holy See put it when asked about his Catholicism. And we take comfort in Jesus’ saying that He had come to save sinners, not the just.

But Daphne is surely exaggerating when she singles out belief in the virgin birth and in the assumption of Our Lady and transubstantiation as beliefs that differentiate Catholicism from other leading Christian religions.

Belief in the virgin birth is common to all Christians, as it is attested to by two of the evangelists (Luke and Mathew) and is an article of both the Nicene and the Apostles’ creed, two of the most ancient summaries of the Christian faith ever written. It is true that some Protestants think that, after the birth of Jesus, Mary went on to have other children by St Joseph, but that doesn’t mean they don’t believe in the virgin birth.

As for the assumption, the Eastern Orthodox Churches call it the dormition, but it means the same thing: namely, that the Virgin Mary, being sinless, never saw the corruption of death, while they too believe in transubstantiation, even if they do not use that term. In fact, there are virtually no doctrinal differences between Catholicism and Orthodoxy except with regard to the double procession of the Holy Spirit (the “filioque”) and the status of the Bishop of Rome. I believe the Orthodox accept the primacy, but not the supremacy of the Pope.

Unfortunately, however, it is almost impossible to generalise about Protestantism. Some Anglicans, for instance, like to be considered Catholic rather than Protestant, and they have some form of belief in the Real Presence, as do the Lutherans, even if the latter group prefers the term “consubstantiation” to “transubstantiation”.

And frankly, the scriptural backing for the Real Presence of Christ under the appearances of bread and wine in the Eucharist is so strong that I can’t see how anyone calling himself Christian cannot believe in it. The New Testament verse “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood you can have no life in you” was not inserted by the Catholic Church.

In any case, if one believes in the Trinity and the Incarnation and the Redemption, the central mysteries of the Christian faith, I really don’t see why the doctrine of the virgin birth and transubstantiation and the assumption, which derive from them, should prove such a stumbling block. It would be a bit like straining for gnats while swallowing camels, wouldn’t it? If one believes in Mystery, with a capital M, why should one find it so hard to believe in mysteries?

Finally, Daphne says that she hates to be rude, and I, who know her to be very polite in real life, might believe her. But after her appalling rudeness to Archbishop Emeritus Mercieca (“Mr Archbishop”), I am afraid that few others will.

Anton Caruana Galizia

Kappara