People in a loveless marriage should be offered “a new path of spiritual growth and fulfillment”.

The most exciting aspect of Pope Francis’ papacy is that he is a force for change. The impact of his arrival has filled churches around the world as the Catholic Church sheds its image as the ‘nasty party’ of organised religion. By his daily actions, he is demonstrating that a world with overwhelmingly grey leaders may still be shaped by the influence of exceptional people.

The Catholic Church has been in need of an outstanding man and, in Francis, it appears to have found one.

The Church – especially the Church in Malta – is often associated in the public mind with an attitude that appears obdurate and doomed to irrelevance. Remarkably, Francis has said that while the Church has a right to its opinions, its dogmatic and moral teachings are not all equal.

A Church obsessed with its own rights and righteousness could inflict more wounds than it heals. “I prefer a Church which is bruised, hurting and dirty…. rather than a Church which is unhealthy… from clinging to its own security”.

Francis sees “the Church as a field hospital after battle. Our first duty is to tend the wounded. You don’t ask a bleeding man about his cholesterol level”.

His focus is on compassion. He criticises priests who won’t baptise children born out of wedlock. To divorced and remarried Catholics who are forbidden from taking Communion, he says that this significant rite “is not a prize for the perfect but a powerful nourishment for the weak”.

The Pope is not changing Church doctrine with these statements and, indeed, there is a danger for those of us who urge change (on, for example, contraception, married priests and attitudes to divorced Catholics) that we will not see our hopes fulfilled. But he has radically changed the Church’s tone of voice – and that has made a huge difference. He is searching for a more pragmatic path to reach the Catholic faithful who have been repelled by their Church with its hypocrisy and unforgiving emphasis on dos and don’ts.

The Church has too often shown itself more comfortable with narrow issues of right or wrong – as we have seen vividly illustrated with Bishop Charles Scicluna’s ill-judged pressure directed at Malta’s legislators for what he termed “the immoral act” of introducing civil unions – than the challenges of human complexity. The Church has, consequently, lost its congregations and its credibility. It is greatly hoped that the Maltese Bishops will catch the zeitgeist now flowing through the Church, for it desperately needs to change.

One of the pleasures of writing a column in this newspaper has been in getting texts and e-mails in response to what I have written. A few weeks ago, I received a most moving e-mail from a Maltese nun now serving the Church abroad telling me the painful story of her niece.

Her niece had found herself compelled to marry in a civil registry office because the man with whom she was in love had failed to obtain an annulment of his first marriage after a 10-year struggle in the Maltese Church’s Tribunal.

Eve, my correspondent’s niece, had met Peter about 11 years ago. He had been married for three years. He was in a loveless marriage with a wife who had no intention of giving him any children. He never blamed his first wife, knowing at the time that entering into marriage had been more his parents’ wish than his. Until later, he had not realised how much his parents had controlled his every decision. It was clear that he had approached his marriage vows under duress and with an obvious lack of commitment. He had started annulment procedures when he met Eve. But after a process lasting 10 years the annulment was rejected by the Maltese Church Tribunal.

In the light of this, Eve and Peter found themselves having to enter into a civil marriage after he had obtained a divorce.

For both Eve and Peter, and Eve’s family, the pain of not being able to have a wedding blessed by the Church, as they fervently wished if Peter’s annulment had succeeded, was intense.

Revisions to the annulment process could well be one of the positive outcomes from the forthcoming Bishops’ Synod

This couple had waited over 10 years and paid thousands of euros in legal fees. Worse, Eve has now turned 40 and her dream of having her own children is in jeopardy. They have abandoned the Church and so have some other members of the family, incensed at the injustice meted out by the Tribunal.

By its actions, the Tribunal has given the Church a bad name and pushed good people away from the sacraments.

For a glaring instance of the abject lack of pastoral care that characterises the Church’s Tribunal, this case was a text-book example of the indifference to which it subjects its faithful.

There were clear grounds for annulment of the marriage. But even if, perversely, the Tribunal could not grant this, the unconscionable slowness of the process took no consideration of Eve’s age.

Moreover, lack of acknowledgment of Eve and Peter’s loving commitment to each other which, in the late Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini’s words, could have provided Peter’s second marriage with “a new path of spiritual growth and fulfilment” was utterly ignored. Prima facie, an injustice was perpetrated on Eve and Peter.

But there may yet be hope for others. Pope Francis has called an Extraordinary Synod of Bishops in October to discuss the pastoral challenges that face modern families, including sexual ethics, divorce, cohabitation and contraception.

In preparation for the forthcoming Synod, the Vatican has circulated a comprehensive questionnaire that addresses a number of challenging issues.

One of the most interesting questions the Vatican wants answered is whether the annulment procedures should be simplified. “Could a simplification of canonical practice in recognising a declaration of nullity of the marriage bonds provide a positive contribution to solving the problems of the persons involved? If yes, what form would it take,” the bishops were asked.

The pitiful case of Eve and Peter, which I have recounted, and the countless other stories about the tortuous process imposed by the Maltese Church on those seeking an annulment, leads surely to only one answer. Yes, there is definitely a need for simplification. More. There is a need for swifter justice to be served, for real charity and compassion to be shown to those caught in an irretrievably broken marriage and for greater humanity to prevail.

The unacceptably long and painful process undertaken by anybody – qualify that: ‘any ordinary Catholic’ in Malta for it is known that those wielding influence get speedy treatment from the Church – to obtain an annulment was one of the decisive arguments persuading the Maltese to vote for divorce legislation four years ago.

Revisions to the annulment process intended to make it more humane, less arduous and cumbersome could well be one of the positive outcomes from the forthcoming Bishops’ Synod.

While, alas, Eve and Peter cannot now be helped, it would certainly save others their anguish and fit in with Francis’ vision of a Church whose first duty is to tend to the wounded in society and to “balance judgment with mercy”.

Question is: can the Church in Malta rise to this challenge?