Among many issues raised in your interview with Lou Bondì was that the primary family to which a Christian belonged was the Church, rather than the biological. Could you explain its relevance to the divorce issue?

An illustration of my point is provided by the so-called Pauline Privilege. According to the interpretation of St Paul’s text by the Canon lawyers, if a spouse converts to Christianity but the other spouse does not and refuses to live peacefully with the convert, then the convert can ‘divorce’ the other in the current sense of the word. In this case it is quite clear that the bond of communion in the fellowship of the Church is deemed stronger than that of marriage.

When I returned to Malta as a newly ordained priest in the mid-60s, the Cana Movement founded by my senior colleague, Mgr Charles Vella, was already about a decade old.

The trend in the presentation of marriage was to stress that its core consisted of the ‘love’ between a man and a woman. Even the procreative dimension was pushed into second place.

Stress was laid on individual freedom of choice of the nuclear partners as opposed to the old idea of marriage being an alliance between two extended families.

The equality of male and female partners was rightly highlighted, with the understanding that the wife would very likely commit herself to a careerquite independently of her husband, instead of the traditional emphasis on common pursuit by the couple of common concerns.

Besides this, in the talks preparatory to marriage that I used sometimes to participate in, the family was canvassed as the sphere within which a new world of peace and justice was to be generated; this went with the married state being exalted in comparison with the previously vaunted virginity.

I myself had then made a statement that is still probably the most quoted by local media: “The battlefield on which our future will be decided is the family”.

Many people may well think that Saturday’s referendum is proving me right. But on the same occasion, almost half a century ago, I had also proposed a critique not only of the ‘romantic love’ picture of marriage but also of the huge expectations that were being nourished as likely to come from it.

Internal improvements of family life were being supposed capable of bringing about global reform, such as reversal of consumerism, general adoption of non-violent methods and acceptance of multiculturalism.

My perspective then was that of Chaplain of the Young Christian Workers’ Movement. I saw that family life was much more conditioned by the social and cultural circumstances prevailing outside it than it was able itself to condition political life, as some of my fellow pastors seemed to think.

In fact, the social structure and culture that came into being after Independence with industrialisation continued to augment the disruption of the household.

Family life came to be almost exclusively reduced to aninter-gender relationship. A modicum of attention sufficedfor one or two offspring, mostly, however, left to grandmother’s care. Not even intelligent sexual education in schools couldhave halted the rise in the rates of marriage breakdown.

You seem to be implying that the pastoral response to the siege of the family did not show as much foresight as was required. Should the Church be doing more now?

I myself responded to Vella’s invitations much more inthe field of media and communication than I did on the directly family front. My marginal contributions in that area were hardly more than two, both connected with my special interest increative liturgy.

The first was to construct a rite for the celebration of betrothal or ‘engagement’ as we tended to call it, instead of the then current very meagre blessing of rings.

My idea was to develop the gradualist, phase-by-phase initiation into married life that Ihad seen was the process followed in such African countries as Burundi with which I wasfamiliar.

I was already seeing quite a few of the young people with whom both my university and my YCW commitments brought me in contact with, choosing to more or less cohabit as an apprenticeship and testing ground before plunging into the fullness of married life.

I was hoping that we would be able to establish a better system that was not focused exclusively on inter-gender communication but gave greater attention to a more general socio-political engagement.

My second endeavour was in fact the attempt to develop with participants ways of celebrating the marriage ceremony itself in such a way that all impressions of the couple closing itself into a cocoon, however warm with ‘love’.

On the contrary, the intention was to make it clear that a fierce battle against dominant social forces in a capitalist environment was being entered into.

Unfortunately, it turned out that the majority of those attending my sessions were more interested in having the advice of what are now called ‘wedding planners’ or ‘bridal consultants’.

All such efforts will not amount to more than tinkering. Radical change can only be brought about by success in getting the electronic work environment to operate on co-operative rather than capitalist lines, as prospected in the Church’s social doctrine.

What about Saturday?

A husband and wife prayed as follows: “Dear God, Joe was determined to vote Yes, Mary equally determined to vote No.

“The argument between us became heated. Mutual insults flew about. Our neighbour asked whether we were getting ready for divorce.

“That made us suddenly realise that spring was renewing creation all around us. So we turn to You to grant us and all couples the stability for which You instituted marriage. Amen.”

Fr Peter Serracino Inglott was talking to Miriam Vincenti.