05 May 2011
The Editor
The Malta Independent.
Sir,
I write on behalf of the Bishop’s Curia of Gozo and Fr. Joseph Grima with reference to the article carried out in today’s issue of your paper entitled “Pro-divorce priest due back to Malta today” and would formally request you to print the following rebuttal, giving this rebuttal the same prominence as that accorded to the original article:
“The Bishop’s Curia of Gozo and Fr. Joseph Grima have taken note of the fact that the information given on the Facebook profile referred to in the article of the 30th April could be taken to refer to Fr. Joseph Grima.
Both the Curia and Fr Grima personally would like to emphasise that the facebook profile in question is evidently the work of a malicious hacker.
This unknown person would easily have accessed the Curia’s own website, found out information about Fr. Grima’s and abused of it in order to formulate what is in essence a false identity purporting to portray the viewpoint of a person who does not exist but who has nothing to do with the facebook profile and who disassociates himself completely and in the most absolute manner from the declarations to be found in that profile.
This falsity is moreover confirmed by the following contradictions between the information portrayed in the Facebook profile and the reality about Fr. Grima:
1. Fr. Grima was ordained on the 23rd June 2000 and not 16 years ago.
2. Fr. Grima works in the St. Francis of Assisi Parish in Mississauga, and not simply ‘with the Maltese Canadian Community close’ to that Parish.
3. Fr. Grima has not visited Malta at any time recently, and the allegation that he ‘happened to be in Malta when the campaing for the introduction of divorce started to gain momentum’ is entirely false.
4. Fr. Grima has no intentions or plans to return to Malta in the near future;
5. Fr. Grima has never expressed any opinion in favour of divorce and disassociates himself completely and absolutely from the activity that purports to be his on the Facebook profile in question.
The Curia points out that, together with Fr. Grima, it is trying to found the originator of this elaborate hoax and once this is done, the Police will be asked to investigate the matter and take such criminal action against all those responsible as is available to the victims of the hoax in terms of law’.
Kindly note that failure on your newspaper’s part to publish this rebuttal will render it an accomplice in the perpetrator’s hoax and may render it, too, liable for any criminal action that may be undertaken at the appropriate time.
Thanking you in anticipation, I remain, Sir,
Yours Truly,
Av. Carmelo Galea.
See also:
http://www.independent.com.mt/news.asp?newsitemid=124464
http://www.independent.com.mt/news.asp?newsitemid=124488
