The “Freedom” to Speak Truth in a Land of Apostasy
The cited article reports on a Maltese court’s acquittal of singer Matthew Grech, who faced prosecution under the nation’s “conversion therapy” ban for discussing his abandonment of a homosexual lifestyle following Christian conversion. Grech, an evangelical, stated homosexuality “is not an identity” and that homosexual acts are “a sin” from which one can repent. The court ruled his interview was personal faith expression, not advertising prohibited practices. Grech hailed the decision as affirming that “speaking about one’s lived experience, including the transforming power of Christ, is not a crime,” and urged repeal of the law he sees as silencing Christian views. The article concludes with a summary of the Catholic Church’s Catechism teaching, which distinguishes between homosexual inclination (not sinful) and acts (gravely disordered), calling for respect and compassion.
This case, while framed as a victory for free speech, is a stark symptom of the theological and spiritual bankruptcy of the post-conciliar world. It operates entirely within the secular paradigm of “rights” and “identity,” utterly divorcing the discussion from the supernatural reality of sin, grace, and the absolute sovereignty of Christ the King over all nations. The article’s omissions are as damning as its assertions, revealing a neo-church that has capitulated to the world’s errors while paying lip service to a diluted, conciliar version of “Church teaching.”
1. The Distortion of Sin into “Identity” and the Denial of the Supernatural Order
The article’s core premise accepts the modernist categorization of homosexuality as an “identity.” Grech’s correct rejection of this is presented merely as a personal theological opinion within a pluralistic marketplace of ideas. This is a catastrophic error. Pre-conciliar Catholic doctrine defines sin, not identity. Homosexual acts are intrinsically evil because they are “contrary to the natural law” and “under no circumstances can be approved” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2357, post-conciliar). But the deeper error is the article’s complete silence on the supernatural purpose of moral law: the salvation of souls. The Syllabus of Errors (Pius IX, 1864) condemns the proposition that “Human reason, without any reference whatsoever to God, is the sole arbiter of truth and falsehood, and of good and evil” (Error #3). The entire debate, as framed by the Maltese law and the article’s analysis, is conducted on this rationalistic, naturalistic plane—a plane of “rights,” “therapy,” and “identity”—as if God, His law, and the eternal consequences of sin did not exist.
The article quotes the conciliar-era Catechism’s distinction between inclination and act, a formulation that, while attempting nuance, dangerously suggests the inclination itself is a neutral “orientation” rather than a disorder demanding a life of chastity and combat. This language, absent from pre-1958 magisterial documents, feeds the modern error of separating the person from their sin, creating a false category of “LGBTQ+ person” that the Church has never recognized. Lamentabili sane exitu (St. Pius X, 1907) condemns the Modernist error that “Truth changes with man, because it develops with him, in him, and through him” (Error #58). The very concept of a “gay Christian identity” is a product of this evolving, subjective truth, anathema to the immutable moral law inscribed by God in human nature and revealed in Scripture.
2. The “Conversion Therapy” Smokescreen: Spiritual Direction vs. Secular Pathology
The term “conversion therapy” is a deliberately pejorative construct of the LGBT lobby, equating any attempt to change sexual behavior with harmful, coercive practices. The article uncritically adopts this framework, presenting Grech’s struggle as a matter of “therapy.” This is a profound diminishment of the Catholic reality. What Grech describes is not “therapy” but conversion in the proper, theological sense: a turning from sin to God, facilitated by grace and the sacraments. It is the work of the Holy Spirit, not a psychological technique. By accepting the “conversion therapy” label as a legitimate category, the article implicitly accepts the modernist premise that same-sex attraction is a fixed, innate “orientation” akin to race or gender, which only “affirmation” can address. This is the error of “biological determinism” condemned in principle by the Church’s constant teaching on free will and the universality of sin.
The court’s distinction between “personal faith expression” and “advertising conversion therapy” is a secular legal fiction. From the Catholic perspective, there is no such dichotomy. To preach Christ is to call for conversion from all sin, including homosexual acts. Pope Pius XI’s encyclical Quas Primas (1925) on Christ the King declares that His reign “encompasses all men” and that His “royal authority contains” the offices of Lawgiver and Judge. The state has no right to criminalize the proclamation of Christ’s kingship and His law. Malta’s law, and the court’s narrow interpretation of it, is a direct product of the secularism Pius XI lamented: “When God and Jesus Christ… were removed from laws and states… the foundations of that authority were destroyed” (Quas Primas). The “victory” is merely a temporary, tactical reprieve within a legal system that has already apostatized from Christ.
3. The Omission of the True Church and the Sacramental Reality
The article’s most grave omission is any reference to the sacramental system as the sole means of grace and justification. Grech speaks of “repentance,” “asking God for forgiveness,” and “strength to overcome.” These are generic evangelical concepts. The article fails to state that, for a Catholic, forgiveness of mortal sin requires the Sacrament of Penance, administered by a validly ordained priest in the Catholic Church. This omission is not accidental; it is the logical outcome of the post-conciliar church’s ecumenism and its dilution of the necessity of the Church for salvation. The Syllabus of Errors condemns the idea that “Man may, in the observance of any religion whatever, find the way of eternal salvation” (Error #16). Grech’s evangelical context, while holding to a correct moral stance on homosexuality, operates outside the Catholic sacramental economy. The article presents this as equivalent to “Christianity,” a classic Modernist error of reducing religion to moral philosophy and personal experience.
Furthermore, the article cites the post-conciliar Catechism as if it were definitive Catholic teaching. This document, born of the conciliar revolution, is riddled with ambiguous phrasing that has been exploited by modernists to soften the Church’s condemnations of homosexuality. Lamentabili sane exitu condemns the proposition that “The dogmas which the Church proposes as revealed are not truths of divine origin but are a certain interpretation of religious facts, which the human mind has worked out with great effort” (Error #22). The conciliar Catechism’s methodology, prioritizing “pastoral” language over precise theological definition, is a prime example of this error. True Catholic doctrine, as articulated by St. Pius X, is immutable and must be defended “without the taint of error” (Pascendi Dominici gregis).
4. The Sedevacantist Reality: A Church Without a Pope
The entire legal and ecclesial context described exists because the See of Rome is vacant. The Maltese law, the court’s secular reasoning, and the conciliar Catechism all flow from the apostasy of the Vatican II “popes.” The “Church” that produced the Catechism is the “neo-church” of the New Advent, which has exchanged the immutable faith for a “broad and liberal Protestantism” (Lamentabili, Error #65). The article treats the current “papacy” and its structures as legitimate, a fatal error. The line of antipopes began with Angelo Roncalli (“John XXIII”) and continues with the current usurper, “Pope” Leo XIV (Robert Prevost). As St. Robert Bellarmine taught, a manifest heretic loses the papacy ipso facto (see the Defense of Sedevacantism file). The post-conciliar magisterium, which produced the ambiguous Catechism and promotes ecumenism and religious liberty (condemned in the Syllabus), is a null and void magisterium. Thus, the “Catholic teaching” cited is not the teaching of the Catholic Church but of the conciliar sect.
Grech’s correct moral stance is being used as a pawn by the neo-church’s enemies to give the impression that “the Church” still holds to traditional morality. This is a diabolical deception. The neo-church, while occasionally mouthing traditional phrases, has fundamentally altered the theological landscape by accepting the premises of liberal democracy and religious freedom. Quas Primas demands that “states… recognize the reign of our Savior” and that “the Church… demands for itself… full freedom and independence from secular authority.” The exact opposite has occurred: the state now dictates what can be said about morality, and the conciliar church submits to this secular tyranny, as seen in Malta’s law and the court’s narrow, compromised ruling.
Conclusion: The Only Victory is Christ’s—Through the True Church
Grech’s personal vindication is a mere tactical success in a war that has already been lost by the conciliar structures. The real tragedy is that the article uses this case to reinforce the false dichotomy between “secular liberalism” and “personal Christian testimony,” both of which operate outside the supernatural framework of the Mystical Body of Christ. The Catholic solution is not “freedom of speech” within a secular state, but the social reign of Christ the King, where the state recognizes the Catholic Church as the sole custodian of truth and morality. This is impossible without a true pope and a hierarchy that confesses the integral faith.
The faithful are called not to celebrate legal victories in apostate nations, but to mourn the loss of the social Christendom that Pius XI desired. They must flee the conciliar sect and its ambiguous “teaching,” and adhere solely to the Magisterium ante bellum—the teachings of the Church before the 1958 apostasy. The only “conversion” that matters is the one wrought by grace through the sacraments of the Catholic Church, administered by bishops and priests in communion with the true papacy, which has been vacant for decades. All else is a dialogue of the deaf between naturalism and a vague spiritualism, a dialogue that the Syllabus of Errors and Lamentabili have already condemned in the most severe terms.
TAGS: Malta, conversion therapy, Matthew Grech, Christ the King, Syllabus of Errors, Lamentabili, Pius XI, Pius IX, Pius X, sedevacantism
Source:
Formerly gay Christian convert wins court battle in Malta over ban on ‘conversion therapy’ (ewtnnews.com)
Date: 06.03.2026