You have no idea how much I regret satirising him mercilessly at school

Fr Sylvester Magro was our religion teacher at St Dorothy’s Convent, in the third form. None of us had any interest in religion, and he had no idea how to deal with a cold, small room packed with 30 13-year-old girls discussing hairstyles, comparing fruity lip gloss (it was all the rage) and reading up about John Travolta and Saturday Night Fever while he paced around in his brown habit and sandals (in January, in Mdina), trying to interest us in the finer points of Roman Catholic dogma. He rode there and back on a Vespa-like scooter, which accommodated his friar’s habit, and this too was the cause of many a smirk. But what I remember most of all is how nice he was, and how decent. When another teacher once found a satirical sketch I’d made of him – teachers were my first subject matter – and showed it to him, the trouble-making sneak, he burst out laughing.

Now as the Bishop of Benghazi in a country fraught by civil war, extreme violence and fear of Islamic State, he is in a far hotter spot than he was then, ribbed mercilessly by small crowds of teenage girls who couldn’t care less about dogma. And once more, he isn’t running away or complaining. He’s dealing with it like the brave man, the good sport, that he always was.

Fr Sylvester, I take it all back. I really admire you, your lack of self-regard, and your bravery.