I am amazed at the gall of Bishop Mario Grech's statement that Catholics feel excluded from public debate (July 20). How can a group that claims to represent 80 to 90 per cent of the population be excluded from anything?

One needs only take a look at the various platforms for public debate to see the opposite. The clergy itself constantly appears in TV programmes, with several programmes entirely dedicated to Church matters. Any pronouncements by the Church are carried prominently by all newspapers (many of which have dedicated sections for the Church), not to mention its own online newspaper and media centre. It runs several schools, as well as having a sizable percentage of the population sitting in its churches at least once a week. Of course, this is just the clergy. If you include all Catholics, it's fair to say that the public debate is almost exclusively dominated by Catholics.

So why does Bishop Grech think that Catholics are being excluded? Could it be that he thinks that anyone who disagrees with the Curia or the Vatican is not a Catholic? Doesn't he realise that the majority of people who are writing in favour of divorce are themselves Catholics?

The fact that every pharmacy and most supermarkets stock condoms shows what most people think of the Church's strict prohibition of condoms. Similarly, people have learned from their own family and friends that marriages are not indissoluble in the real world and divorce offers a way to move on.

The simple truth is that the Church no longer speaks on behalf of Catholics.