And some still wonder why people are straying away from the Church every day and going back to God.

The latest missive from the Maltese church hierarchy has, unsurprisingly, left everyone incredulous as to whether 2010 society should be treated in this manner, particularly at a time when the Pope and bishops everywhere have been begging for forgiveness on the paedophile priest saga.

While it is only fair to grant the local Catholic Church the right to dictate rules and regulations to its members and to declare who of them should or should not have access to any or all of its sacraments, there has to be a more realistic and, above all, humane way of doing things in an institution that is riddled with self doubts and growing anxieties.

The timing of the local Church’s ban on cohabitating couples receiving Holy Communion could not have been worse. Even shoddier and more perplexing is the intimation that they could still, however, attend Mass, as some form of consolation for the obvious humiliation meted out to otherwise exemplary and down-to-earth citizens of this country. It’s like asking someone to dinner and then refusing him or her, the main item on the menu.

Coming so soon after the no less baffling ban of cohabitating MPs being refused, together with their partners, attendance to religious public activities during the Pope’s recent visit, it exposes a cobwebbed mentality worthy of the Dark Ages. It is certainly not what most people, ardent Catholics or not, looked forward to seeing happen inside the Maltese Church under the charismatic, fresh-faced benevolence of Archbishop Pawl Cremona.

In the immediate reaction to the Church’s ban, many have rightly asked why it was only targeting cohabitating couples as if they were the only “sinners” with the temerity to receive Holy Communion. We are, therefore, either a nation of saints or someone has his priorities wrong, because that cheap human prerequisite the Maltese nation seems to lack – common sense – tells you that were that same ban to cover all kinds of sinners, churches here would simply have to pull down their silver shutters.

A preacher once announced on radio that there were 572 different sins mentioned in the Bible. He received countless requests for the list from people who thought they might be missing something. Even “original sin” is a misnomer because every kind of sin has been practised before. Try weaving out a ban on all that if you can.

There may be some new sinners today, but there are no new sins. So why single out cohabitation? I’d rather see fair treatment being accorded to a devout, albeit cohabitating, couple honestly willing to partake of the Church’s sacraments than, for example, the archetypal Maltese politician who on Sunday goes to every church in his electoral district by way of declaring to one and all, especially those of voting age, his perceived sanctity.

Confronting the list of saints against that of sinners could be a nightmare for the Church. We all have friends and acquaintances who are living happily in cohabitation and we can vouch for their pleasant character, their honesty and their sincere and healthy approach to everything in life, from personal beliefs and good living to paying taxes and an instinctive abhorrence of corruption.

In full juxtaposition, we also know many who are legally married but lack those same genuine human characteristics and yet are free to go to church, receive Holy Communion and present themselves as God’s gift to Christianity.

Where does the Church draw the line? How is the poor village priest expected to know that the next man or woman about to receive the sacrament from him is actually a cohabitating “sinner” from the town nearby? Is there some kind of secret police to keep him informed and updated? Hey, Father, those two have finally tied the knot, at last. You can take them off the black list.

Should we have cohabitating couples wearing some sort of armband on their sleeves, reminiscent of the bright yellow Star of David the Jews had to wear in Nazi Germany?

It is all so confounding really. This idea that the Church can so brazenly distinguish one sinner from the other, with cohabitating partners on top of some sort of Premiership list, is not only a hapless fallacy, but also an affront to 21st century thinking. It is a sad throwback to the days when Church and churchmen had no boundaries and one was dictated to about matters and issues occurring both inside and outside the Church. Church history is replete with that. Maltese Church history is a veritable archive of such examples.

One universal example, no doubt, is the fact that, while it is still quite lawful for a Catholic woman to avoid pregnancy by resorting to mathematics, she is still forbidden to resort to physics and chemistry. The truth is, though, that most Catholic women today ignore this particular diktat and no one seems to be batting even an eyelid anymore.

In a nation of saints and sinners who interlock as much as they interlope, such issues and topics as church-going and church self-regulation do come a cropper. Rather than sowing more prejudice against different lifestyles and desired or imposed situations, one should be seeking to bridge the gaps that exist.

I admit to not being a regular churchgoer, perhaps even a “non-practising” label could fit me. So do I have the right to comment on such matters? I believe I do. If the Church and churchmen are entitled to expressing their views on strictly secular matters, so should the rest of us be free to give opinions on matters relating to the Church and on the Church’s treatment of its faithful who, there should be no doubt, are fellow law-abiding citizens with equal rights and equal responsibilities.

We all have our views on why more and more people seem to be staying away from church. Not surprisingly, even Sunday Mass attendance has dropped dramatically in recent years. But I like the way a very good friend of mine, a young priest with a keen sense of humour and some premature wit, once put it to me.

“Don’t stay away from the Church because you have the idea that there are too many hypocrites in it. There’s always room for one more...”

We’re still good friends, by the way.