No tourist visiting Malta would nowadays repeat what a traveller to Malta, quoted by John Wignacourt in his 1914 book The Odd Man in Malta, said in 1914 — ‘Malta would have been a delightful place if every priest were a tree…’! Contemporary Malta is much greener than what it was when the Knights of St John were given the arid island in fief in 1530 AD, even though current debate often focuses on the current government’s alleged lack of concern for the environment in its drive to appease the developers. But also because the number of priests has dwindled significantly over the last half a century, and the cry of ‘Malta Kattoliċissima’ (“Malta the most Catholic”) no longer holds sway.

On June 16, 2015 media reports quoted Prime Minister Algirdas Butkevicius as saying that a civil partnership bill was being discussed with the leaders of the Lithuanian Roman Catholic Church. The discussion centered around whether or not the bill would apply to both heterosexual and homosexual couples. Butkevicius was confident that there were grounds to reach a common agreement, but a few days earlier, Minister of Justice Juozas Bernatonis, opposed to civil partnership for homosexual couples but in favor of heterosexual partnership, had boldly stated that he did not see any problem in homosexual couples living outside of any legal regulation, deeming them “statistically irrelevant” and incompatible with traditional family values.

Un nouveau procès mené à l’encontre de l’Église de Scientologie débute à Bruxelles ce 26 octobre. L’Église de Scientologie de Belgique et le Bureau européen de l'Église de Scientologie internationale, ainsi que certains de leurs responsables, comparaissent en effet devant le tribunal correctionnel. Les chefs d’accusation sont lourds et englobent la qualification d’organisation criminelle. La Scientologie, qui s’était faite plutôt discrète en Belgique ces derniers temps, bien qu’elle bénéficie d’implantations luxueuses dans la capitale de l’Europe, est ainsi appelée à revenir à la une des médias.