Yet again I feel in duty bound to comment on Joe Zammit’s latest letter (August 24) in which he chose to tackle what he calls “burning issues”.

I’m sure Zammit means well as he quotes from The Magisterium of the Church, the Cathecism, encyclicals and so on. However, he invariably gives me the impression of always wanting to exclude rather than trying to include from the pail of the Church those people who, for various reasons and life experiences, find themselves unable to “tick all the boxes” of the written dictum of the Church and consequently feel alienated.

“Contraceptives are intrinsically evil...”, he declares. Where on earth did he get this from, I ask. How many practising Catholic couples in our country actually adhere to the systems advocated by the Church where contraceptive measures are concerned? Very few, I suspect. However, surely these couples do not hesitate to approach the sacraments because they are assured of God’s love for the “sinner”.

Zammit’s near obsession with divorced couples being practically beyond redemption is the exact opposite to what Pope Francis has been professing since his elevation as the successor of Peter, he himself a “sinner”, I suppose.

The latest leader of The Sunday Times of Malta, ‘A more inclusive Church’, is what Zammit should be proclaiming and not the rigid interpretation of the Church’s guidelines which are there to accompany us to the sacraments and not to exclude us from them.