Following the pope’s visit to Malta and listening to his speech at the President’s Palace, I was struck by his blistering criticism.

Pope Francis said Malta must continue to fight corruption, foster honesty and stop unbridled construction and land speculation. It must be kept safe from rapacious greed, from avarice and from construction speculation. Such harsh criticism is a hallmark of this pope who always speaks his mind.

What utterly threw me off my armchair were the holier-than-thou comments just minutes after this speech by Prime Minister Robert Abela and former foreign minister Evarist Bartolo on TVM, who welcomed these comments as endorsements of their ‘newly found conversion’, like Saul’s, to environmental qualifications, when they were, together with the Joseph Muscat cabinet, during the past nine years, not only responsible for but active promoters of the rapacious greed and unbridled speculation criticised by His Holiness.

Abela was earning his €18,000 a month as a legal adviser to the Planning Authority and adviser to Muscat’s cabinet at the time. Bartolo supposedly was softly telling Muscat that this could not go on and yet voted several times in a vote of confidence for Muscat and attended and partook in all cabinet meetings.

This sounds like spinning of the facts and feels very much like what is happening with the news of the Ukraine war inside Russia. How have we come to this lowest level of propaganda?

There is another thing that worried me about the pope’s speeches. He criticised the war that is ongoing in Ukraine without mentioning or blaming Russia or even the name of President Vladimir Putin. Oblique references are worthless. But the opportunities to heal one of Malta’s deepest divisive wounds, the brutal and vicious murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia, was not addressed by His Holiness. A stop of his popemobile on its route down Republic Street, Valletta at the Great Siege Monument with the pope leaving the car to cross to the monument to Daphne and say a prayer there would have been the strongest message to the crowds who came from the two tribes of Malta – the Reds and the Blues.

But he just drove by as though Daphne never existed. I am sure that the Vatican’s nuncio as well as the Vatican’s renowned foreign service and spies around the globe at all dioceses would have informed him of this event and its meaning for the Maltese (both those happy at her murder or even accomplices to it as well as those aghast at her killing and the breakdown of the rule of law).

The pope criticised the war in Ukraine without mentioning or blaming Russia or even the name of President Vladimir Putin- John Vassallo

I am sure he was informed of the public inquiry held by the three former and active judges who found Muscat’s government guilty of having allowed a culture of impunity to prevail so that the murder could happen. I am sure he knew that Daphne was exposing one scandal after another before she was killed. The same corruption and rapacious greed that he referred to in his speech in the Palace throne room.

If a stopover at the Great Siege Monument was not possible, then the local curia should have, at least, asked for a reference in one of the pope’s speeches during those two days.

Maybe when the pope had so much time to meet so many NGOs, immigrants, sick and suffering families as well as religious orders and politicians,  he could have met with the father and mother of Daphne either in a private audience or have them participate in the offering during the public Mass on the Granaries. A hug and a word of consolation for their loss made publicly by the pope would have been an excellent message.

Here again, the pope must have been advised by the local Church scared to challenge the present government or by a formal request from the president or our foreign ministry, that was led by Bartolo during the preparations for the visit. As a former ambassador, I know that formal state visits are always negotiated between diplomats of the two countries – in our case Malta and the Holy See – ahead of the trip. Certain taboo subjects to both sides are negotiated and, maybe, this is what happened.

Yet, since the pope is known to be so independent in his thinking, I am utterly disappointed that he did not tackle this particular issue.

I wish I knew who to blame but, of course, we will never find out. Had Daphne been alive, she would have found out. I am sure there are priests in the curia who know what actually happened. Will they ever reveal this to us?

Does the pope not care about Daphne’s murder?