Time to legalise divorce

Fr Robert Soler, SJ, argues that "legalising divorce is no panacea". The current prohibition of divorce would be better equated to one where a person suffering from some ailment requires a medical operation. However, his eldest brother refuses to allow him to go ahead with it on religious grounds.

Fr Soler should look around him - separations, civil marriages and cohabitation are part of our society today. As Mr John Micallef (The Sunday Times, November 28) has correctly pointed out, "in theory we do not have divorce; in practice we have had divorce for many years".

People today accept that marriages do fail sometimes even in spite of both parties' best intentions. The old marriage failure stigma is being confined to the history books. As time goes by, the Church continues to shrink both in numbers and influence. To use Fr Soler's own argument, I ask, why should society listen to a "vociferous minontry" like the clergy who pressure the government to ignore the introduction of much-needed divorce legislation?

Fr Soler totally avoids the point made by many letter-writers that in practical terms there is no difference between divorce and separation. Society is already giving out signals that it is time to legalise divorce for a number of reasons.

The sole difference between Malta and (literally) the rest of the world is that some of our politicians do not have the courage to introduce divorce for fear of the Church's influence on voters. Unfortunately, for politicians things are becoming increasingly complicated since this so-called minority is not so small any more.

I have noticed that certain intelligent politicians have prepared well-rehearsed lines for skirting around the issue of divorce. Most people recall that this issue came up time and time again during the European Parliament election this year with the Greens being probably the main beneficiaries of the divorce lobby and the PN the main losers.

I will join Fr Soler in calling on Government to have the courage to act. However it is evident that Government only needs courage if it does the right thing and legalises divorce. The messages emitted by Government have been very hazy of late and this is unacceptable. Dr Gonzi should clear declare whether as long as he is Prime Minister divorce will never be legalised (with no fancy talk). However, now that a political intifada is starting to take place because of divorce, I doubt he will go that far.

My view is that the current societal situation in this country is ripe for divorce legislation without this issue being dragged into the political limelight.