ToonToday: The race

That freemasonry brings together a gathering of pompous men who are in love with themselves and have a fancy for old costumes and Tolkien styled rituals is not in question here.

There is nothing to prove that freemasonry is linked to a scratch my back, scratch yours arrangement. But it is understandable that in a country with a very high Roman Catholic influence and an inquisitive press any secret society is bound to raise more than a few eyebrows.

That Magistrate Carol Peralta was a freemason just before he was appointed a Magistrate is not an irrelevant piece of news. Neither is it inconsequential that some lawyers are members of a secret society in Malta.

No one is saying that the lodge or its aims are wrong, but the peculiar and bizarre and secret rituals do nothing to dispel the perception that freemasons come together simply because they have nothing better to do with themselves.

MaltaToday has a comprehensive list of freemasons in Malta; perhaps not the complete list – but quite an extensive one. If we were to publish the list we expect to suffer not from direct reprisals but from a definite boycott by several businesses in terms of advertising in some of our media productions and publications. The freemason list contains some, not all, of the better known businessmen on the Island.

The direction of this newspaper is committed to its readers, its employees and in passing on the news and the truth.

It is a sad story that a medium such as MaltaToday should have to condition itself. But we do so to a much lesser extent than the rest of the media. This is the price to be paid in reporting the truth so long as newspapers continue to depend on commercial advertising.

If readers want to read the truth then they will have to pay far more than a meagre 18 cents every Sunday.

Back to freemasonry.

Justice minister Austin Gatt, has had the cheek to castigate this newspaper for jumping to conclusions, he has asked for proof.

And we have given it to him. Dr Austin Gatt knows that there are other individuals working close to the Maltese judiciary with connections to freemasons.

In our investigations we have not been able to trace any politicians with freemason connections, other than one medical practitioner who is a local councillor and a member of the Nationalist party.

Dr Gatt can brush aside our news reportage and label it daring and silly, but in the wake of the Arrigo and Vella scandal, it would be foolish to brush it aside.

We will be there to remind him that secret societies have no place in modern society, more so when Maltese society is calling out for more accountability, less nepotism and more transparency.