A closed mind and an enlightened one (1)

I must congratulate The Sunday Times on its outstanding interview with Mgr Charles Vella, founder of the Cana Movement.

This was a glowing example of a good priest with an enlightened and intelligent mind showing, through his profound experience of working on the front-line of marriage preparation and counselling in Malta, a realism, wisdom, humanity and generosity of spirit so lacking in many others.

The interview should be required reading by our legislators in Parliament and all those who have the good of society and marriage at heart.

What Mgr Vella said reflects virtually the same conclusions set out in the Today Public Policy Institute report, 'For Worse, For Better: Re-marriage After Legal Separation', of which I am the lead author.

Mgr Vella said: "My theory is that while divorce is considered a menace to the stability of marriage, it does not mean that it's going to wreck marriages... The State has to come to grips with the problem of divorce. It has a duty to do it... The people on the ground are crying out for help from the State.... We need to change the current marriage law... I keep reading that marriages in Malta will disintegrate if there is divorce, but it didn't happen in Italy... As a priest and as a human being, I cannot close my eyes... It's better for their parents to marry than cohabit...

"The Church should avoid quoting certain statistics in a bid to water down the alarming number of marriage breakdowns. These are not figures. They are people. There are families behind this. I feel for the couple whose first marriage was a big mistake, but are now living a very good life. Very often their first marriage was a mistake; they want a more stable and happy second marriage".

Contrast all this with poor Roamer in his piece in the same edition, 'More is less'. Such a good mind - but utterly closed. His closed mind is now exposed and upstaged by the enlightenment and realism demonstrated by Mgr Vella.

Instead of parroting the criticisms in the Proġettimpenn report - which had been roundly demolished in my response to it - he should take a leaf out of Mgr Vella's book when he said: "Some of the Church's exponents are going overboard. They should either stay silent or be updated."

Roamer should stop his sanctimonious dissembling on the subject of divorce.