On the first Sunday of 2010, The Times carried a fulmination by one John Consiglio, of Birkirkara, which moved the editor to admonish him for basing himself on vitriolic fiction rather than fact. The gentle chiding by the editor was not unprecedented, but it was unusual, because, generally, editors tend to let letters to them speak for themselves.

What caused Dr Consiglio to splutter and get all annoyed was something my good friend Fr Joe Borg had written, which referred to the inevitability of divorce being introduced in Malta. Such is the horror with which people like Dr Consiglio regard divorce that this led to a paean of declarations from him from on high, for all the world as if Birkirkara had become the Holy See and ex cathedra his attribute.

Leaving aside virtually all of Dr Consiglio's ranting, I will confine myself to responding to his last paragraph, which reads, verbatim: "Finally, is there some point along the process of conditioning the popular mindset by the media where some key opinion makers should openly declare themselves in favour, or against, divorce?"

First, the short answer: "No".

There is no reason why opinion makers should declare themselves openly in favour or against divorce. If you can't make out whether I, for instance, am in favour or against divorce, then, frankly, either I can't write or you can't read.

I am pretty confident that I can write, having been doing it for some 50-odd years with only the envious or those who adopt ad hominem tactics trying to give the impression that I lack the rudiments of making myself understood.

Which leaves, if my position on divorce, only my readers to blame if they are unable to discern whether I am in favour or against anything, on this occasion, divorce.

But just in case my previous opinion pieces on the subject, of which there have been some over the years, have not been written clearly enough, or just in case people like Dr Consiglio lack the wherewithal to grasp what I've written, let me spell it out: "I" followed by "am" followed by "in" followed by "favour" followed by "of" followed by "divorce".

Put all the words in inverted commas together and I believe the matter is clear.

As far as I am concerned, the debate is not about "whether" but only about "when" and, in this regard, the sooner the better, and about "how", which is the part of the debate that concerns the protection of any children of the disintegrating union.

I have added all the caveats and qualifiers in the past about how making divorce available does not make it mandatory and about how institutions like the Church (or Dr Consiglio, for that matter) are perfectly entitled to express themselves on the moral issue of whether people should divorce or not, but these caveats do not, as far as I am concerned, impinge on the main argument: divorce for civil marriages should be introduced as soon as possible so we can put the current hypocrisy, engendered by our politicians' slavish adherence to the idea that Malta's voters are super-Catholics who will never tick their box unless they stick to the saintly line, behind us.

It's about time, then, that our political decision-makers grasp this nettle, which will turn out to be a dandelion, and kill the "whether" aspect of the debate. And let's have no guff about referenda and testing popular sentiment because this is not a matter of the majority imposing its will on the minority but a matter of the state (note, the state, not the Church) giving a small, but significant minority, a way to disengage from unhappy marriages without resorting to the - I repeat myself - hypocrisy of separations or annulments.

Following on from the above, the notion that state and Church should divorce, is not, of course, a novel idea, and theoretically, it's the basis of our system of government. It's about time, though, that it was given effect and that certain aspects of interference by self-appointed arbiters of morality are given the cold shoulder once and for all. The extent to which this will happen, of course, given our current crop of politicians (who are no different from their forebears in this), is debatable at best.

Take the controversy about censorship and you'll see what I mean.

Very few politicians have come out against the ridiculous banning that blighted the intellectual (or even quasi-intellectual) scene over the last couple of years.

The shame is, of course, theirs for not speaking up clearly about how no-one has the right to decide what should or should not see the light of day. Perhaps it's unreasonable of me, on reflection, to expect that politicians, who are perceived, not without reason, as being there for the power their position gives them, should really want to let us think for ourselves.

Just to start the year on a good note, not having eaten for at least 12 hours, the missus and I took up a suggestion to try Iċ-Ċima in Xlendi. We did and we loved it, for its location, for the service and, paramountly, for the food.

imbocca@gmail.com

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