Mark Montebello (Mtarfa, Malta, 7 February 1964) is a Maltese philosopher and author. He is mostly known for his controversies with Catholic Church authorities but also for his classic biographies of Manuel Dimech and Dom Mintoff. Private life Montebello, the son of Joseph, a RAF corporal, and Lucrezia (k.a. Grace) née Sultana, a primary school teacher, both from Sliema, was born in Malta at the Mtarfa military hospital, the third of four siblings, and grew up at Sliema. Montebello took his primary education at St. Francis School, Msida (1968–75), his secondary at St. Albert the Great College, Valletta (1975–80), and his higher education at St. Aloysius College, Birkirkara (1980–82). Montebello joined the Dominican Order at Rabat, Malta, in 1980, in which he made his religious profession in 1983. He was ordained a priest in 1989. Controversies Mainly due to his unconventional thinking and candour, unusual for a Catholic priest in the Maltese Islands, since 1992 Montebello became a well-known controversial personality. This was augmented by bans periodically issued by the local Catholic authorities silencing him from speaking publicly for specific periods of time ranging from a few months to as long as three years. The first ban came in 1992. Following a talk show on radio Live FM, Montebello was temporarily barred by the local archbishop Joseph Mercieca from speaking publicly for a year about the Catholic Church, faith or morals. This repeated itself in 2005 following an article in the Church-run weekly Il-Ġens, in which Montebello called the papal election of Joseph Ratzinger “a bad joke”. In 2009, mainly following an article in the left-wing It-Torċa submitting that Jesus accepted divorce, the archbishop Paul Cremona banned Montebello from speaking publicly for a year. Due to this and other issues which precipitated the ban, Montebello was recalled to Rome by the Master General of the Dominican Order, Carlos Azpiroz Costa. As a result, Montebello was distanced from the Maltese Islands for three months at Mexico, serving with bishop José Raúl Vera López. In 2011, ahead of the referendum on divorce held in the Maltese Islands, Montebello harshly criticised the Church's campaign and actions. In 2015 Montebello was again chastised, this time by the archbishop Charles Scicluna, when he blessed the engagement of a gay male couple. On this occasion it was his congregation which banned him from speaking publicly for three years and also threatened to defrock him. Studies and