Towards the end of the 19th century in Britain, a literary subculture had developed, its genesis Walter Pater's Studies in the History of the Renaissance, which Oscar Wilde described in his De Profundis as "that book which has had such a strange influence over my life". Pater's central belief was that life was to be lived as a subjective experience; nothing else should inhibit man.

Wilde and other contemporary literary figures acted out this belief in full. They held that art had no moral purpose, believed in art for art's sake (which is as meaningless as saying murder for murder's sake). Wilde immortalised it all in his preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray: "There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written or badly written, That is all... No artist has ethical sympathies. An ethical sympathy is an unpardonable mannerism of style." Which, of course, is tosh, but Wilde was riding high and heading for a fall.

Curiously enough, when he did ruin himself, it was to the Catholic Church he turned, telling a correspondent for the Daily Chronicle three weeks before he died that, "much of my moral obliquity is due to the fact that my father would not allow me to become a Catholic. The artistic side of the Church and the fragrance of its teachings would have cured my degeneracies. I intend to be received before long."

The fin de siècle brooding of the 19th century seems to have arrived in Malta. Art for art's sake is being claimed by its producers for a play that seems to have the creative and artistic merit of the barnyard; and I mean no disrespect to the barnyard.

Some have declared that the decision of the Board of Classification to ban the play was evidence that we live in a repressive society, a ludicrous opinion not borne out by the fact. As Fr Joe Borg has calmly pointed out, that this was the first time such a decision had been taken during the past 10 years.

Should a play never be banned? Is the argument of context infallibly valid? I think not. I think there are occasions, rare but they exist, when banning, or censorship, is justifiable and I admire the argued decision taken by Teresa Friggieri and her board.

There are those who think that justification is warranted only in cases where a racist content creeps into the script, but they do not give reasons as to why this should be so; and they do not even attempt to answer a question raised by Ranier Fsadni, who asked after much tortuous consideration - "Are we seriously saying that, as a matter of principle, there is no degree of denigration of other people's sacred values, and no degree of depravity, that warrant suppression in the name of guaranteeing a non-intimidating public sphere?" Nobody can seriously say that.

Getting on with it

The news that the restoration of Fort St Elmo has reached its planning stage as part of the government's ambitious Grand Harbour Regeneration Project will lift everybody's heart and mind.

But after the irresponsible finale to the St John's museum project, 1,500 signatures out of a possible 300,000 came to be called, famously you must agree, "the will of the people", don't hold your breath.

It is worth remembering about St Elmo that up to 1971 the place was kept in fairly good condition by virtue of the presence within its walls of territorial units who used Lower Elmo as their barracks and parade ground.

The place then went, as the saying goes, to the dogs. Upper Elmo was kept spick and span by a regiment of the Royal Malta Artillery from the end of the Second World War until the start of the Seventies. Later still, the place hosted the Police Academy.

When Dom Mintoff decided in his inimitably unreasonable fashion to disband the territorials he did away with military organisations dedicated to part-time soldiering and the discipline and camaraderie that goes with it. Today's youngsters have been denied this choice.

He also ensured that the ghosts of times past no longer had any form of kinship with the present and the 450-year-old fortress subsequently fell into a desuetude more scandalous than that of the Opera House. The latter was a casualty of war, the former of our own negligence.

It now seems as if scores of millions of euros will be invested in the fort's transformation. Once again, however, it is not the restoration that will come under scrutiny so much as the use to which the project will be put. No doubt everybody will have a better idea of what to do with the place.

Anything the Steering Committee appointed to get the thing moving will finally come up with, will have more searchlights trained on it than there were strobing the skies for enemy aircraft during the Second World War. Mark Portelli, beware.

The sooner the master plan is drawn up and work starts, the better. Infrastructure investment throughout the inlets that make up the Grand Harbour, proposals received from 14 interested parties in the sale of the Malta shipyards, new investment in the pharmaceutical sector as well as work on Smart City - all these are forming a valuable vanguard in Malta's offensive against recessionary evils; which is why the government must weigh in with every ounce of its energy to get that regeneration underway.

What was conceived as an integral part of Vision 2015 has become a matter of immediate urgency. The government should forge ahead and, hey, it can do away with environment impact assessments. If these can be waived by their most loyal champions in the case of St John's, why not by their least in the case of a dilapidated fortress?

Dethrone the Holy Spirit, elevate Kung

There is a certain boorishness, even downright vulgarity, never mind intellectual paucity, about the style and the content of some local criticism of Pope Benedict. He is misquoted, misunderstood, subjected to deliberate misinformation and treated by some as if he were suffering from a touch of the sun. One dim spark accused him of jeopardising Church relations with Islam, Judaism, Anglicanism, and of dumping ecumenism. A visitor from another planet could be forgiven if he concluded that Pope Benedict was some runaway papal bull rampaging through the delicate china shop of religious affairs.

Some claim that nothing has equalled what was hysterically described as his 'catastrophic' decision to lift the excommunication of "four prelates" of the Fraternity of Pope Pius X (not V, as one commentator, a political scientist at that, unfortunately chose to designate the 19th century Pope). Among these four was Bishop Richard Williamson, who publicly denied the Holocaust ever took place and who has since been disciplined.

This, we were told, caused 'irreconcilable damage in the Vatican's relations with the world', so irreconcilable that the Pope's visit to Israel in three months' time has been confirmed. His "latest insensitive injudicious act", observed one critic, would have been the last straw had the Pope been a CEO, which of course he is not; and Catholics may wish to have him replaced by Barack Obama, which they will not, pace Hans Kung.

Truth is Pope Benedict has been nothing less than ardent in his respect for Judaism and graphic in his horror of "the unpredictable power of evil when it conquers the human heart"; gross to forget the words he used when he visited Auschwitz in 2006 and posed the radical questions of the psalmist to a God who appeared silent and distant. Addressing the Conference of presidents of major American Jewish organisations, he recalled those words: "The rulers of the Third Reich wanted to crush the entire Jewish people, to cancel it from the register of the peoples of the earth. Thus the words of the Psalm, 'We are being killed, accounted as sheep for the slaughter', were fulfilled in a terrifying way."

Also, it was he who called on all people to recognise that the Holocaust was "an admonition against oblivion, negation and reductionism". He certainly did not need German Chancellor Angela Merkel, or anyone else for that matter, to ask him to dissociate himself from Mgr Williamson's remarks; he can point to statements he made regarding Jews when he visited Cologne in 2005, Auschwitz in 2006, Washington and New York in 2008, and Rome last month.

Pertinent to point out, as the Canadian Conference of Bishops did last month, that the decree lifting the excommunication does not allow them "to exercise sacred ministry licitly or to exercise any office or act of governance in the Catholic Church. It simply opens the possibility of restoring them to communion with the Catholic Church".

The priest-theologian Hans Kung, who is quoted by some with a great deal of reverence has suggested that Obama be made Pope. Great. Then perhaps he will offer a Cardinal's hat to Joe Biden, Ted Kennedy, John Kerry and Nancy Pelosi. He could then promote pro-FOCA guys and dolls to run the Vatican.

Kung could go a step further. He could edge the Holy Spirit out of the Godhead and promote himself to the Trinity, all the better to inspire and hover over Pope Hans (a name Obama may find himself constrained to adopt).