Maltese is particularly weak when it comes to religious terminology, which is why it borrows those of Islam (Ghid, Randan, Mulied, Alla and so on) and then runs into particular problems with stuff like the defrocking of priests.

Did the bishop lend a helping hand? U nezzaw kompletament jew hallih mqar bil kalzetti?

He would likely have included ‘pirmli’ too.

The one who’s shacked up with his secretary?

When is he going to be sorted out?

Nothing will persuade me to use the alternative, working-class version, which is being pushed as the official one.

It’s alien to me.

All languages have different versions, but no country pushes the working-class version as official. To use a ready example to which most Maltese can relate, does David Cameron speak like Pat Butcher in Eastenders? No. Is Pat Butcher’s way of speaking the official version of English? No.

We are both saying exactly the same thing.

‘Neza’ is perfectly correct because the verb is used in the same way as ‘defrock’, except in this case it would be an unfrocking rather than a defrocking, because it is voluntary and not imposed.

‘Gie mnezza minn sacerdot’ is, however, completely nonsensical. The fact that it has been used for years is neither here nor there. So has ‘petlor’. Had Guze Aquilina been alive today, he would no doubt have put that in the dictionary too.

There simply is not a term in Maltese for the defrocking of a priest – it is a concept that comes from an entirely alien language. And it is pointless trying to make one up. All good translators know that sometimes you just have to rewrite the sentence and the term so as to keep the meaning.