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Also I looked on the website for the Diocese of Gozo which lists Fr. Mercieca as an active priest in the diocese – yes my friends – unbelievable. He is listed as residing at 46 Triq il-Librerija Victoria Gozo VCT 1173. His telephone number is 21554123 just in case anyone out there wants him to officiate at their son’s First Holy Communion this season. His date of ordination is listed as September 30, 1962. We are told that he resides in Gozo and that he is incardinated in another diocese.

That last bit of information is to say the least inaccurate. Archbishop Favalorola of Miami prohibited Fr. Mercieca from performing any priestly duties in public and asked other victims of his to come forward and at least one did and filed a lawsuit alleging that he had been fondled by Fr. Mercieca when he was a young boy. The fondling took place in the belltower of the church in Miami where Mercieca served.

Were Mercieca’s priestly rights reinstated without any publicity? If they were not then what on earth is his name doing listed on the website for the Diocese of Gozo? And what ever happened to Bishop Grech’s investigation which was trumpeted with such media savy all those years ago and applauded as another example of “kemm jaghmel l-affarijiet bis-serjeta dan l-isqof il-gdid”. Kemm hu “no nonsense” tafux!!

Your links as interesting as they are do not answer my question – what happened with the investigation into Mercieca which was started by the Gozo Diocese?

The Archdiocese of Miami did the right thing and took away Mercieca’s right to say mass publicly and asked other victims to come forward. And at least one other did. Followed by a civil lawsuit against the Archdiocese of Miami by the victim who alleges he was fondled by Mercieca in the bell tower of another church in Miami where Mercieca served.

What happened to the investigation by the Gozo Diocese which was trumpeted with such media savy at the time to show just how seriously the new Gozo Bishop was taking things?

I just looked at the website for the Diocese of Gozo under their list of priests and there is Father Anthony Mercieca listed as being resident at 46 Triq il-Librerija Victoria Gozo VCT 1173. Tel: 21554123 (if anyone wants to tell him what they think of him) and tells us that he was ordained 30 September 1962. That he resides in Gozo and that he is incardinated in another diocese. That other diocese – Miami – banned him from working as a priest so he is not incardinated there. Why is he still listed on the Gozo website as an active priest?

So what happened to the investigation? Still working on it all these years later? Quietly dropped?

Hmmm…. I guess you might be right about the cultural difference on how sexual abuse victims are treated. I always thought that avoiding sex victims in Malta was not the norm, I thought it was more the case of victims being over-victimised and being the ‘miskin/a tar-rahal’ for the rest of their existence, which is as bad if not worse. At least from my perspective, because the victim will never be able to move on in life.

Let’s say you are right, in my opinion it still doesn’t make sense to cover up sex offenders’ identities. Most of the people around the victim will still end up knowing what happened, especially due to our gossipy culture, so the shunning away problem is still there. In my opinion, the pros of exposing the offenders heavily outweigh the cons.