U2 frontman Bono made no apologies when tax revelations showed that he used Malta as an offshore base to invest in a Lithuanian shopping centre where employees are miserably paid.

Bono is well known for his charities including UNICEF and Make Poverty History and probably managed to avoid taxes that are larger than the whole budget of Eritrea. Ironically, his band’s melodies are sung by a multitude of my generation living cosily in a bourgeois bubble where philanthropy is merely a façade.

But I’d rather sing Gregorian chant for I want to adore the true God. From my studies of history I’ve learnt that the then social order of fledgling Christian nations took giant steps forwards when Benedictine monks slowly but constantly transformed people’s mindset and attitude towards work by adhering to their Ora et Labora (prayer and work) motto. Their philanthropy was not fake.

Paul Hewson alias Bono (like Benedictine monks Bono changed his name) is not alone. Lewis Hamilton a formula one driver, Isabella dos Santos who is the daughter of Angola’s despot and countless others use Malta as their base.

We Maltese are so happy because we are taxing their money and the multiplier effect on our economy is working wonders.

We are being reassured by the Maltese Chamber of Commerce that what Bono, Dos Santos and many companies are doing is legitimate tax planning. They lecture us that theirs is tax avoidance and not tax evasion. We are also advised to shut up not to damage the reputation of Malta’s financial services and of course their pockets.

Indeed during the last election campaign, one of the few instances when Joseph Muscat and Simon Busuttil agreed, along with the gay civil marriage burp, was when the European Investigative Collaborations published the Malta Files. Der Spiegel, Le Monde, l’Espresso, El Mundo and others dubbed Malta a fiscal paradise and the Italians said that Malta is an island of pirates. Both Busuttil and Muscat said that these foreign newspapers were liars.

The financial industry and gaming devised by the Gonzi government was eventually fine-tuned by Labour. Now it is not just Bono who can invest here easily but also Libyans flocking Malta after Gaddafi’s downfall with luggage full of hard cash, Russian oligarchs, Chinese tycoons, Gulf state sheiks, Central Asian moguls and Cosa Nostra bosses. And they can buy European citizenship as well. Malta has become like an ongoing James Bond movie.

Malta has become like an ongoing James Bond movie

During a Television Malta debate just before the 2008 general election Lawrence Gonzi corrected Alfred Sant when the latter mistook a Catholic encyclical and its author. However, I doubt whether the former consulted any Catholic social teaching when he set up the foundations of Malta’s financial services which serve only crude capitalism.

The Maltese are so happy with this state of affairs. Is this perhaps the reason why many are celebrating that Daphne Caruana Galizia is dead and buried?

I am not surprised that St Paul teaches that “the love of money is the root of all evils; it is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced their hearts with many miseries’’.

But I have not lost hope. I was there concelebrating with the Archbishop and other priests during Daphne’s funeral Mass in the Mosta rotunda. On the way to the altar and back to the sacristy my eyes met the eyes of some of the young people there.

It is to your hearts that my heart speaks. You are young and you have not yet been corrupted by the wicked of our age. But you are also vulnerable and prone to mistakes. I thus have some advice to give you.

Beware of false teachers like some fellow priests who trumpet Pope Francis’s love of poverty and then relish fat salaries while the rest of the clergy struggles to cope. Like Anthony Kitchin, Bishop of Llandaff, who retained his see from Henry VIII to Elisabeth I. These would follow the opinion of any lobby to protect their privileges.

Worse is the womaniser Bishop Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord whose career spanned from the ancien régime up to the Restoration. His residence in Paris is the present day embassy of the US to France. Do not follow these hypocrites.

Neither be distracted by the so-called civil liberties ranging from abortion to euthanasia, gay civil marriage and prostitution liberalisation that the government is proposing to distract the people from the real issues. All these are lesser deities subservient to the colossal demiurge called crude capitalism.

Do not be fooled by these Herodian tactics of a government who pays for the setting up of a Maltese crib in Bethlehem to adore baby Jesus but like the despot of that age massacres innocents by liberalising the butchering of embryos. Do not fall to these diversion tactics.

I know that the three candles Daphne lit for her sons will not be extinguished. I saw them that Friday afternoon in Mosta church and I know that these three candles will become 300. Their faces were bruised but their eyes sparkled with that vitality of Pier Giorgio Frassati and the innocence of Therese of Lisieux whose souls were never corrupted.

Only in this way can this present evil in Malta be defeated. Civil marches will help but they are not enough. Clerical tweeting will stir souls but it can be shooting from the hip. Talleyrand-style blogging will obfuscate minds especially when the intention is the well-being of a political party.

Go to the gospel as Vatican Council II exhorts. Be saints. Choose Jesus Christ above everything else. Do not be afraid for the Virgin’s Immaculate Heart will ultimately triumph.