HSBC have announced that they are pulling out of Malta. They are pulling out of Europe, too, looking for better business in Asia.

This can be a shock for Malta’s financial services. If Malta is deprived of a big international bank, it will make our international transactions more difficult.

HSBC say they had tried finding just such an international bank, but did not succeed.

They then studied the local situation and concluded that APS would be the best bank to take over their services, with similar-enough standards and practices. It was HSBC that chased APS, not the opposite. The government, APS and other institutions first said no but, still, no international bank was found.

APS is a bank started by a Jesuit, later passed on to the Malta and Gozo dioceses, who expanded its service, making it the third-largest bank in Malta. Recently, the dioceses reduced the proportion of their share, other shareholders now holding 30%. Buying out HSBC would make the Church’s share even smaller.

But the idea of such a buying by a Church bank has raised hot controversy.

Opponents argue that the Church cannot survive in the banking world without having to submit to rules that are at loggerheads with the gospel.

Secondly, the Church of Vatican II and Pope Francis must be a poor Church for the poor and possessing a big bank puts its trust in money rather than faith.

Supporters respond that existing Church banks were not abolished even by Francis and that banks can be run honestly and altruistically.

Supporters also insist that it is very important for the Church to ‘save’ our financial environment through this buy-out because having a reputable and ethical bank like APS take over is the next best thing to having a big international bank do it. Without this saving act, the big lacuna created will prove a setback to our already-challenged financial environment.

Fr Joe Borg protested that, even if such a saving act is needed, it is up to the government, not the Church, to do the saving.

This is, then, a crucial question: is such a saving act needed to rescue the Maltese financial system? The experts must weigh up and the Church must exercise discernment to help us know how far this unusual saving step is really needed.

Will that make it an opportunity or a threat to the Church?

APS is already part of an international network of ethical banks. That suggests a bank can survive while keeping to agreed ethics.

One would think and hope this means they keep away from investments that harm socially, environmentally and in governance, do honest and undeceptive marketing, their bosses do not over-pay themselves, commit no direct harm to the common good, etc.

But is this enough for a bank of the Church of the poor and of the gospel?

Probably more is needed. Like its being run largely like a social enterprise. There should be rules that the profits that go to the Church should generously, regularly and accountably contribute to helping the needy and vulnerable.

And its style should be not ostentatious but simple.

Is the Church up to it? APS has been praised for its supportive mortgage loans. But Fr David Muscat says it relies too much on using Malta’s ‘tax paradise’ status, while he says they should condemn it.

Realistically, not only banking but all walks of life have to reckon with sin that lurks everywhere, like the darnel, or like the capillaries that run all over the human body. As I walk on the floor of my house, I am surely supporting the sins of the construction industry.

Losing opportunities to run ventures for the good of the weak can play into the hands of entities too intent on profit- Charles Pace

As Jesus did not object to paying taxes to Caesar, was he supporting the sins and atrocities of the Roman empire? Did St Paul support slavery by asking a master to amicably accept back an escaped slave?

Pope Paul VI’s dream was for Malta’s to become a world model of how its immovable property is run. Is the Maltese Church up to being an example and a leader about how a bank which, more than ‘ethical’, is also Christ-inspired and pro-poor?

Fr Borg says that he would rather prefer the Church to totally divest itself of its bank.

What happens when the Church relinquishes important economic assets? How do you ensure that it does not make matters worse by handing them on a plate to less caring masters?

Relinquishing its land, the Church made gains for its mission by safeguarding its schools, crucial to its mission. But those properties that passed on to the government then proceeded to expand the for-profit market, which has become the greatest international threat to affordable housing the more it moves non-profit housing out of its way.

When, following a court decision, the archdiocese handed over its administrative role on an ancient foundation running large tracts of land in Gozo, the effect was that this fed into a for-profit venture, leading to skyrocketing rents and evictions.

Losing opportunities to run ventures for the good of the weak can play into the hands of entities too intent on profit.

If there is a real need for a rescue, and the Church is able to take on the challenge without disproportionate harm to itself, it should not shirk from taking on a business role.

In the 1960s, archbishop Michael Gonzi joined the protest, along with Malta’s political parties, civil society and even the (British) governor general, to protest against the threat of the British military rundown. This was an unusual role for the Church but surely, if he had shirked it, it would have been a dereliction of his duty.

If such a saving act is needed, maybe the Church should consider taking this up with the intention of reselling, once, with some help from its own contribution, Malta is again attractive to international banks.

Hopefully, the Church, having established exemplary standards in social banking, will also be able to demand such standards from its succeeding international bank.

Finally, even if a rescue is not deeply needed, should the opportunity of being an exemplary, social-enterprise type bank still be considered? Discernment is needed to see if one is up to it.

Can the wolf and the lamb live together, as promised by Isaiah?

Charles Pace is a social policy academic.