For The Malta Independent (15 October) to state that Mick Jagger, Richard Dawkins, et al have “surely contributed as much as Pope John Paul II, Mother Theresa, Saint Francis, and others” is surely to show to what materialistic depths the leading articles of some of Malta’s English language papers have dropped.

No wonder the whole exercise of the same editorial then misses completely the important topic of whether somebody can publicly say he does not believe in the existence of God, and then present himself in court where he takes an oath in the same manner that Catholic believers usually do, calling that same God as witness of what they would be about to say in that same court. With journalists of this type, no wonder we’re in the state we’re in.

John Consiglio

Birkirkara

Editor’s note: Mr Consiglio clearly missed the thrust of the whole leading article, while conveniently manipulating what he quoted from this newspaper. Mr Consiglio ‘forgot’ to mention others we mentioned: Pavlov, Zuckerberg, Freud and Hawking, among others. He also fails to mention that we spoke relatively, not in blanket fashion, as he seems to imply.

The leader was about freedom of choice to think as one likes. We also did say, hands down, that picking up the matter in court was completely correct, by the lawyer. We say again, Mr Consiglio, it was legal technicality, and the lawyer in question was well within his rights to pick it up. But putting stories in newspapers and spouting venom on the radio because someone is an atheist is befitting of Tehran, not Malta.