And I did not “conclude that he used cannabis”. I said something else entirely: that growing, selling and using cannabis was not illegal before 1939. So he might well have used it (because it grows well in the Maltese climate) and if he did so, it would have been no more wrong or illegal than using, say, garlic.

Maybe your parents just wanted you to believe in the magical powers of Francis Mercieca. I can understand that: I grew up in an environment where St Anthony found all of our lost or mislaid stuff. I still bribe him today.

More like Bambi’s mother, judging by some reactions – including that of the highly religious Roman Catholic Jeffrey Pullicino (Orlando).

No, Spock. I am merely pointing out what has been common knowledge for rather a long time: that there is no such thing as supernatural powers.

Do you know how many people claim to have healing hands and supernatural medicinal powers today? They’re dismissed as cranks but have sizeable numbers of followers among the less sensible who are comfortable with chakras and crystals.

The point here is that Francis Mercieca was and still is not unusual at all. It was simply the circumstances of the times that created that scenario, including the fact that he was born into the cultural desert of Gharb in 1892, where nobody was interested in anything other than growing onions – so he really stood out.

The fact that people are doctors and lawyers does not mean they are or were highly educated. Even today, Maltese doctors and lawyers tend to be catastrophically poorly educated in the main.

And the over-riding factor is that they were Roman Catholics in pre-war Malta where, if you voted for Strickland then you supped with the devil, and where ‘Protestant’ was a Bogeyman word and you went to hell if you set foot in ‘knisja tal-Inglizi’. My point here is that religious faith is in direct conflict with the rational mind required for the practice of law and medicine. Back then, the religious mind won the conflict. Nowadays, I’d like to think (or hope) that it does not – but then I see a psychiatrist like Mark Xuereb following Angelik around and examining his eyes and mouth as he rolls around at Borg In-Nadur, and I think otherwise. Unless, of course, he was only doing it for the publicity.

Nothing remotely like hysteria in Frenc tal-Gharb’s cases, and the witnesses were absolutely reliable, and perhaps surprisingly many were highly educated, including doctors and lawyers.

Yet you have simply ‘rubbished’ the whole thing ‘through a process of independent discovery and assessment.’

I’m afraid you’ll have to tell me who they were and exactly what they witnessed. As has been amply demonstrated, I’m not naturally predisposed to faith in the way that religious people are.

Yes, precisely – and that’s about the sum of it. You don’t move from that to ‘supernatural powers’ and ‘sainthood’, though.