In an interview with The Sunday Times of Malta in 1970, author Anthony Burgess said that, as long as the Catholic Church in Malta held secular power, “Malta will remain a good place for young Maltese... to get out of”.

I was one of those “young Maltese who got out” – a year in advance of Burgess’s advice.

At a Good Friday procession at Rabat, in 1969, I was so bored that I prayed to God “to take me out of this backward country”. God heard my prayer. A few months later, I was on my way to a four-year stay in the United States. At the end of my stay there, I lived for 20 years in Canada.

When I finally returned home for good, Malta was no longer the stifling, priest-ridden theocracy that I had left behind in 1969. Since my return, I’ve witnessed the triumph of secularism in Malta, including the abolition of the “blasphemy” law.