Fr Bernard, you've got mail

The Times online has reported that its sources in the Vatican confirmed that Fr Charles Pulis has been defrocked "about two weeks ago" but it is only the Missionary Society of St Paul (MSSP), that is Pulis' bosses, who can make the announcement public.

Very strangely, Fr Bernard Mangion, the MMSP superior general, said that he has not received "any official papers" from the Vatican confirming the defrocking and that before he does he "cannot speak".

What is going on here? Why have these papers not arrived by snail mail in two whole weeks? Given that Fr Mangion is a high church official who resides in Italy, not Malta, is it conceivable that no one at the Vatican picked up a phone to quietly let him know of the decision? If the Pope had found it in his heart to apologise personally to these men, wouldn't his minions informed Fr Mangion that the Vatican found the perpetrators guilty?

Equally important, once the court sentence was handed down yesterday, shouldn't Fr Mangion have made an immediate call to the Vatican to inform them of it and they, in turn, inform him of their decision? I cannot come up with any plausible to all these answers.

My understanding of Fr Mangion's way of thinking continued to plummet when I turned to his choice of words to react to the court sentence. "I am very sad at the development. They will now appeal and we have to wait for justice to run its course." Development? Magistrate Saviour Mangion did not hand down a bloody 'development'. He sent two of Fr Mangion's own priestly sex abusers to jail for 11 years.

Fr Mangion has a rather twisted understanding of what the appeal lodged by his priests means in this particular case. That they appealed does not imply that justice has yet to be done, that it still needs to 'run its course'. Magistrate Demicoli's sentence is not just the light first station of the cross, with the possibility that these two men might not be crucified by the fourteenth one. Does the superior general of the MSSP honestly believe that these two men are innocent of the terrible crimes they committed?

I am absolutely shocked that Fr Mangion decided to give credence to this appeal, which is nothing but a ploy by two convicted sex abusers and liars to buy time out of jail. The MSSP superior general should be leading the procession asking for forgiveness from the victims, not give the impression that these two so-called men have a chance to get off.