Religious information

I have read the letter by John Guillaumier (July 8).

To find people with a grudge against religion is not surprising. Frankly, however, to find people who have the courage to express their disapproval to have religious information on The Times is not only surprising but also presumptuous.

The Times is a publication fully integrated with the real values of the Maltese people who are in the majority all practising Catholics. Notwithstanding the changes during the years, and also of being a secular newspaper, your paper has always been considered a serious newspaper and enjoyed a very good reputation during all these years. It has never been considered as a religious paper, even if, rightly so, your paper has always given regular information about the most important religious events and also commented on various topics in connection with the Church.

Mr Guillaumier expects your paper to be more secular and should avoid the heavy dose of priests and religion. Your correspondent cannot be more pretentious! He suggests to Peter Paul Portelli who wrote on the subject to subscribe to Lehen is-Sewwa if he wants to read about priests. The suggestion I make to Mr Guillaumier is that if he is annoyed reading The Times he can stop reading it and subscribe to a more secular newspaper. I do not want to interfere in his beliefs and preferences. But, in my opinion, the comments he made are an insult not only to your newspaper but also to the big number of Maltese who read The Times regularly.

Apart from their convictions and beliefs, since the first publication 68 years ago, the majority of the Maltese have considered The Times as part of their daily life. More secular papers have since been published but with no significant success.

The Times is right to publish news about the most important religious activities. These activities are part of the Maltese life. How can a national paper ignore such events? The ordination of priests is a very great event. It is a God given grace.

Surely The Times will not lose the future generation of newspaper readers. If this will unfortunately happen it will not mean that the paper has become a religious publication. It will happen only if the readers, the type of Mr Guillaumier, will by that time have lost every sense of Christian values which we, in our majority, still cherish as most precious gifts.

Let Mr Guillaumier be secular as far as he wishes to be. I am sure The Times will not succumb to a correspondent who wants to impose his secularism. Most probably he was more inspired to express his hostility towards our religion than making a suggestion to The Times.