The president of the US-based Universal Society of Hinduism welcomed the Maltese Church's plans to teach schoolchildren about other faiths during religion lessons.
Rajan Zed also urged Archbishop Paul Cremona to form an interfaith group with other religions present in Malta and work together towards replacing the subject of religion with comparative religion.
Earlier this week, Mr Zed, who lives in Nevada, called on the Maltese authorities to ensure that in religion lessons students are taught about major world religions, including the viewpoint of non-believers.
Reacting to this, the Church said it agreed on educating children on other faiths, adding that next month it would be discussing a policy document that suggests introducing students to other religions.
The document will be discussed by the Diocesan Assembly of the Maltese Archdiocese on October 10 before it is presented to the Maltese Episcopal Conference for approval. The document suggests introducing students to "the beauty found in other faith traditions" without renouncing to the centrality of the Catholic faith, explained Adrian Gellel, who is responsible for religious education within the Archdiocese of Malta's Schools Secretariat for Catechesis.
Dr Gellel said that comparative religion, suggested by Mr Zed, was about teaching students about other faiths. However, the policy worked towards helping students learn from other religions while keeping the Catholic faith as the core.
In Malta, he added, Catholic religious education was enshrined in the Constitution, the Education Act and was in line with the agreement between the Holy See and the government.
In a statement this week, Mr Zed applauded the Church "for documenting that students should learn from the beauty and goodness of other faith traditions".
He suggested that, rather than being decided by the Church alone, religion education should be planned by a group that represented the various faiths present in Malta. He therefore called on the Archbishop to set up the interfaith group.
"Besides Catholic majority, Malta has minority communities of Protestants, Orthodox, other Christian denominations, Muslims, Hindus, Jews and people with no religion... As a dominating majority in Malta, Catholics had a moral responsibility to take care of minority brothers and sisters from different faith backgrounds," he said.