Appearances can be deceiving. This is why an unquestioning attitude is always unwise, even before the most virtuous of stances. I am thinking of the righteous feathers that were ruffled by the rumour that the ‘Church’s bank’ might acquire the Maltese subsidiary of HSBC. Alas, this may be another case of naivety disguised as virtue, and naivety does enjoy dressing up in the garb of the virtuous.

Expertise in banking is not a quality that I possess. If I am weighing in on this debate, it is because this issue raises the important question of the Church’s outlook on its own future, and it seems to me that the position of the critics has much impulse but little strategy.

They are quick to denounce this acquisition as blasphemous. How dare one mix God with mammon, which is quite ironic, coming from the lips of people who believe in the incarnation – God entering the world as a human person. After the incarnation – if you believe in it – nothing that is within the world is a priori excluded from God. And, yes, that also includes moneymaking.

This may sound like theological bickering, and perhaps it is. But the problems with the concerns being aired go beyond the merely theological and have much to do with the practical and strategic. What the critics say is too little, too late and too inconsistent.

They make the point that the Church cannot have anything to do with money and so the acquisition of HSBC is problematic. They apply a general principle to a particular situation. But if it is a general principle, then its scope goes beyond the question being discussed here. The same argument is equally applicable to the existence of APS Bank itself.

If the Church cannot have anything to do with money, then the Church should have divested from APS a long time ago. This begs the questions: why are the critics only making their voices heard now? Why has something that until yesterday was no cause for concern suddenly become the devil incarnate?

Underlying the objections being made is the belief that moneymaking is intrinsically wrong. This is, of course, simplistic. There are many perfectly legitimate activities in the world that can lead to morally dubious situations  but that does not make the said activities wrong.

Overdevelopment, which is problematic, does not imply that construction is always and necessarily wrong. Similarly, corrupt governments do not make the art of governing automatically corrupt. The same holds for banking and moneymaking.

Actually, they could be a means to a higher end. Who is going to help first-time buyers purchase their homes? Who is going to fund projects that have a clear social purpose but lack financial viability? In the absence of a bank that endorses social values, all of this would become chimerical. In this context, I would think it twice before declaring a crusade on banking. This figurative crusade may end up being as self-destructive as its historical predecessor.

A Church that is not financially independent is a Church with strings attached- Fr Carl Scerri

This brings me to a deeper concern of mine. A Church that is not financially independent is a Church with strings attached. If, on one hand, the government becomes its source of income, then the Church becomes a vassal of the state. If, on the other hand, the Church limits its income to donations – as some are suggesting – then the risk is populism. To survive, the Church would have to say what pleases its people. See the mess within the German Catholic Church to understand what this leads to.

As the Church in Malta reflects on its future, which looks increasingly insecure and difficult to navigate, it has to understand that there is no end without a means. Its outlook has to be virtuous but also realistic. A fair dose of Realpolitik would not make any harm.

To keep communicating its message effectively, clearly and freely, the Church has to be financially independent. All this talk about ‘a poor Church’ is simply short-sighted. It goes for the low-hanging fruit, using Pope Francis as a token to make an immediate point about poverty. It forgets, however, that it is the responsibility of the Church of today to guarantee the means for the Church of tomorrow to keep functioning. The line between martyrdom and self-destruction is thin, and the same applies to poverty. Without nuance, it can become ideological and ultimately self-destructive.

In this context, rather than getting fixated on poverty, it would be better to speak of wise and strategic administration, which strikes the right balance between money-making and evangelical poverty. Aristotle may have something to say here. For him, virtue is the middle-of-the-road option between two extremes, and, although he did not read the Nicomachean Ethics, Jesus probably would not disagree.

Indeed, besides the simplicity of doves, he beseeches his disciples to have the wisdom of serpents. A simple but wise administrator knows that the end does not justify the means. But because he is not an ideologue, he also knows that, if one goes too far, one ends up with an end without a means, an idea without a plan, a Church without a future.

Carl Scerri is a priest and doctoral student at the University of Oxford.