Mosta cleric Fr. David Muscat has urged Prime Minister Joseph Muscat to go ahead with his plan to meet Pope Francis today and use the occasion to ask the pontiff for forgiveness.

“Now is the time for a conversion of the Maltese nation. We must return to a Republic, whose wealth is generated through work and not through financialization,” Fr. Muscat said.

“Therefore, I do not agree with those academics, who wrote, that Joseph Muscat’s visit to the Pope should be cancelled. Meeting Pope Francis is always a good thing, because the Pope never trembled in front of corrupt politicians, notably when he was a bishop in Argentina.”

“Joseph Muscat can ask Pope Francis for forgiveness. This private encounter can be more effective than all the protests in Valletta.”

“With all being said, the Pope needs our prayers as well. A rosary prayed with devotion on the eve of the feast of the Immaculate Conception, can be more powerful than both a sword and a pen.”

Fr. Muscat said the situation in Malta shows that the Prime Minister is either naive, deluded or has gone mad.

“In one of his plays, Sophocles wrote that when a god plans harm against a man, he first damages the mind of the person he is plotting against. Indeed, evil would seem good to that man whose mind a god is leading towards destruction. This is precisely the tragic story of Joseph Muscat.”

“He has become like Dorian Gray, who had sold his soul to the devil in exchange for power, success and beauty. Only too late had Mr Gray realised of the tragic trap that he had set himself in.”
The priest argued that the silver lining of this whole situation is that the whole world will realise that Malta’s economic model is “rotten to the core”.

“Now is a time for unity. Don’t let the political parties tribalize this fight for justice. We are all brothers and sisters, and at this crucial point in Maltese history we should all unite.”

“What will happen when Joseph Muscat and his crooks are gone? Will Malta still be a tax haven, as the Malta Files revealed? Will our political class keep on saying that the Malta Files were pure lies, in order to defend their neo-liberal economic model?”

“Nonetheless, every cloud has a silver lining. Joseph Muscat’s mistakes were providential because through his meteoric downfall all Europe and all the world will learn that the economic model, we devised, is rotten to the core.”