A retired bishop said on live television that he would urge abuse victims to forgive their perpetrator before going to the police.

George Frendo, who until 2021 served as archbishop of an Albanian diocese, was speaking during a programme on religious TV channel UTV last week.

“The first thing I would say to a person who is hurt is to encourage them to forgive before telling them to go to the police,” he said.

“I’d tell them they have a right to report and seek justice but the first thing is I’d encourage them to forgive.”

Frendo was part of panel of four people – three of them priests – discussing the case of a parish priest who was sentenced to 20 months in prison last week for defiling a sacristan’s 15-year-old niece.

Following the sentencing last week, the Church apologised to the victim, thanked its Safeguarding Commission for handling the case and said the Vatican stopped the man from his priestly ministry.

The court reduced the original 42-month prison term on appeal but, on the programme, the panel criticised the way the accused was treated by the courts and the Church.

During the programme, UTV founder Fr John Farrugia slammed the Safeguarding Commission and the Church for “discarding” its people instead of “showing forgiveness”.

“I was hurt by this. Come on. I went to the funeral of [Gozitan priest] Eucharist [Sultana] and it was shameful that they didn’t even place a stole on his coffin,” he said.

The stole is a priestly vestment that symbolises the priestly ministry and spiritual authority bestowed upon them by the Church and is traditionally placed on the priest’s coffin when they die.

“No matter who the person is, you shouldn’t discard him, even if he was a murderer. If the Church is not showing the beauty of forgiveness, it too must convert.”

The Catholic Church does teach Christians to forgive, even the most serious transgressions, but not instead of seeking justice. In the Church’s social teaching, justice and forgiveness go hand in hand and there is no true forgiveness without justice for the victims.

It also insists nobody should be discarded, not even the worst criminals, but that does not mean sparing them justice for their wrongdoing.

The Church has, for the past decades, urged Christians to report any abuse – sexual or otherwise – to its Safeguarding Commission or directly to the police, and Archbishop Charles Scicluna publicly reiterated that Christians who close their eyes to abuse or stay silent about it in the belief that they are protecting the Church are, in fact, the ones who are harming it.

At one point during the 90-minute programme, both Frendo and Farrugia insisted they were not justifying abuse, recognised people were hurt a lot by abuse perpetrators and admitted that coverup in the past was wrong.

‘Gravity reduced considerably’

Frendo and the editor of Catholic newspaper Il-Leħen, Pio Dalli took issue with the way the law interprets crimes like the one committed by the parish priest who was sentenced last week.

In that case, the court heard that the priest and the girl began a relationship when she kissed him on the lips and he reciprocated. The two went on to have a sexual relationship that lasted for around four years until 2020, when the girl reported him.

The court heard that the priest tried to end the relationship but the minor began to threaten him when he raised that prospect. She then ended up reporting him to the police.

During the TV programme, Frendo said that, by way of example, while succumbing to instigation and encouragement to steal would be a mistake, its gravity would be considerably reduced compared to stealing on one’s own volition.

“It’s easy to judge but do you know all the circumstances of the case,” he asked.

Dalli added: “I’d like to raise a point about the term ‘minor’. In the eyes of the law, that term is determined by the age. But I’m sorry, to be a minor is not a matter of age. Lawyer Joe Brincat, who was once defending a man who was accused of corrupting a minor, said in court that ‘the corrupt cannot be corrupted’. [Because] so many people had already been found guilty of corrupting this girl.”

Fr Colin Apap, however, was not agreeing with the other three men, and made it clear that, irrespective of the details of each case, nobody could close their eyes to abuse.

“In the past, to defend the Church, we would close our eyes and deny these facts. There was so much abuse, thousands of cases. Every priest makes mistakes but I can’t just close my eyes,” he told his fellow panel members.

“We’re talking about minors here, underage children. Even if children say yes, you cannot abuse them. That’s where justice and the police come into play. The bishop cannot close his eyes when faced with such cases. It’s not about discarding a person – it’s about drawing attention to the behaviour of a person who is, ultimately, the bishop’s responsibility.”

In a reply to questions sent to the Archbishop’s Curia, a Church spokesperson said that “the Malta Church’s position on this case [was made] unequivocally clear in [the] statement issued after the appeals court ruling” last week.

The Church’s Safeguarding Commission is an independent body dedicated to protecting minors and vulnerable adults within all Church entities and religious communities by investigating allegations of abuse, among other things.

It conducts preliminary investigations, provides vital support to victims and collaborates closely with civil authorities like the police and the Child Protection Directorate.