(MALTA)
Lovin Malta
November 14, 2026
By Paul Bonello
Only two weeks ago, on the 25th of October, the Archdiocese of New York agreed to compensate around 1,300 people who reported sexual abuse by clergy the sum of US$800 million in settlement of their claims.
The New York settlement is the second largest involving a Catholic diocese after the US$880 million agreement reached by the Archdiocese of Los Angeles in 2024.
The news was first reported by none other than the Vatican News, the official web site of the Vatican along with Radio Vaticano and the Osservatore Romano. Evidently, the settlement carried the imprimatur of the Pope, or rather, I would say, the subtle exhortation of Pope Leo. Not only; being announced as it was in headlines of the Vatican media and being the lead story of the Osservatore Romano necessarily meant that the Vatican wanted to spread the (good) news to all Catholic faithful and suggest the way forward elsewhere.
In Malta Cattolicissima this news was not reported at all. Much less commented on its ramifications for Malta. Not even in some obscure column of any printed media or at the end of the news reel of some TV or radio broadcast or web site.
Newsbook, the official media organisation of the Church that runs RTK, was altogether silent about it. No mention on the Church’s news service Newsbook notwithstanding its stated motto of, wait for it, “Fair, Accurate and Newsworthy”, emphasising so often that the outlet is committed to objective and precise reporting that gives a voice to multiple perspectives without bias and emphasising ethical reporting and credibility with its audience. And then it acts as another PBS, even censoring the Vatican by altogether ignoring it.
The Church media organisation evidently did not consider it newsworthy notwithstanding the undoubted existence of the phenomenon of clerical sexual abuse and the attempts by victims to seek justice in Malta. And notwithstanding that Malta’s Archbishop Scicluna served for a very substantial time as one of the Catholic Church’s leading and trusted investigators of clerical sexual abuse world wide, both under the Papacy of Ratzinger as well as that of Pope Francis.
The reality of it all of course is that the Church in Malta wanted to bury the news and ensure that none of its fidili get wind of it.
Newsbook might as well change its name to PRADVA, the Kremlin news media which name means TRUTH in Russian.
To be altogether fair nor did the lay news media pick up the news. Not even the political party media. Nor indeed PBS. These would rather stick to reporting the Sunday morning sermons of worldwide proportions of importance relayed by our Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition in some village party club.
And why does the author want to make this point? Because repeated Bishop statements in Malta, such as a recent exhortation during the celebrations of Solemnity of Christ King, extol the virtue of truth and how truth liberates the soul, stating that true respect for one another relies on accuracy , integrity and facing facts honestly. Of course omitting what was really intended namely that this applied as long as the truth concerns someone else and does not somehow make the local Church itself uncomfortable.
The relevance of this news to Malta is underlined by how the local Church administrative hierarchy dealt with any attempt by victims of sexual abuse to seek justice in our law courts. In a case instituted by a number of victims some one decade ago the local Church, instead of recognising the unmistakable truth in the allegations and coming to some sort of settlement with the victims by way of partial purification of its sins and “a measure of healing and reconciliation to all victim-survivors” – quoting the text of the Vatican News in describing the recent New York settlement – came out strongly against the legal action defending itself by way of saying that the Church should not be legally liable for the acts and omissions of individual members of the clergy, but more importantly putting up the preliminary defence of prescription or the time barring of the legal action.
To the mind of the author of this opinion piece, both defences were not worthy of a religious organisation, let alone the Catholic Church in Malta.
The first one – not being legally responsible for the acts of its member priests – is of course a legal heresy. As if the doctrine of vicarious liability does not apply to all, Church included.
But what is most morally reprehensible is the defence of time barring of an action. As if God’s Justice which the Church rightly proclaims recognises the plea of prescription. Prescription is lawful but may not be legitimate. As if the defence of the time barring of a legal action has not always been considered by the courts, Maltese courts included, as “an odious defence” and a “conscientious matter” because it has the effect of still birthing a case irrespective of the substantive merits of it, stopping the courts from further investigating and adjudicating the truth and the merit of it. And that is exactly what happened to all and any legal actions that were instituted by victims of sexual abuse in Malta with the Courts having to inevitably rule such actions as time-barred and hence for the victims to be unable to secure civil compensation through the courts. I doubt how the local church opposing victim claims by the plea of prescription can give credibility to those in its upper echolons pontificating and moralising to others about God’s justice.
Of course, it must be said in fairness and for the sake of completeness, that the Maltese Archdiocese offered psychological assistance to the victims of abuse.
In authoring this article, the undersigned is risking of course being labelled as an anticlerical and an enemy of the Church. Which of course is complete nonsense typical of autocratic regimes denouncing critics as xewwiexa and seditious.
The author professes Catholic authentic teaching and recognises and acknowledges the immense good performed by the Church throughout the centuries and as the only institution in human history that has been capable of reforming itself and remaining relevant for two thousand years until today it is one of a few solitary voices of good sense and sensibility in this crazy world of today.
But there should be no reason not to boldly recognise the historical excesses of the Church as a human institution. Whether it consisted of the mediaeval practice of indulgences, inquisition and obstacle to scientific discovery.
Or the more recent plague of sexual abuse, the use of mortal sin for partisan political purposes, the provision of Church private schooling against payment by the elite – until the Church-State Concordat of 1992 – and the promise of heaven to dying faithful in exchange for bequeathing land and worldly possessions to the Church to become the largest land owner in the country, in spite of the Mortmain law. Malta included. Or rather especially in Malta where the Church leadership as recent as only a year ago would have liked to become the largest banker on the island too by having its APS Bank acquiring the HSBC Malta operation. “Manoevours” – as the Bishop across the Channel rightly labelled them – as part of its Evangalisation exercise we were told by the big boss, of course.
Only the recognition of the Truth liberates the Church of its past excesses and makes it relevant to our young who have unfortunately voted with their feet and deserted our churches.
Lovin Malta is open to interesting, compelling guest posts from third parties. These opinion pieces do not necessarily reflect the views of the company. Submit your piece at hello@lovinmalta.com