I wish to share my observations with readers on the subject of divorce.

1. Many who are for divorce are so because they are suffering and see divorce as a personal solution to their woes.

2. The ultra-religious don’t understand that someone who has always decided his private life issues outside the boundaries of religion will not be convinced to change his mind by quoting religion to him.

3. Many have very little knowledge of the Scriptures yet attempt to quote it to support their views.

4. We tend to write but not listen. Very few answer one another therefore very few seek the truth; we rather seek to state the way we see things and that’s it. This is no debate.

5. Many of those who are desperate see divorce as their chance to opt out of their failed marriage but do not sit to count the cost which others see as the irreversible transformation of the whole nation’s mentality on marriage itself for present and all future generations.

6. Many who are pro-divorce think that it will not affect Catholic marriages so they think that when Catholics defend the indissolubility of marriage they do it out of egotism.

7. Very few seem to observe that “the rest of the world” resort to divorce irrespective of whether they are Catholics or atheists because the lifelong marriage bond is slowly eroded from the conscience as well as from the collective memory.

8. While “the rest of the world” can serve as fieldwork, very few – and I welcome them when they are quoted – are able to quote scientific studies showing the effect of divorce on the stability of adolescents, the stability of the second marriage, the ease or otherwise with which step siblings interact in subsequent second and third marriages, and the relation of divorce to alcoholism, prison sentences, growing violence in the young, school drop-outs and teenage pregnancies. This should be our teacher and none of our personal convictions.

I believe in a referendum after a good national debate, however if the kind of present exchange drags on, we will not be less fools as we venture to the polls. People will simply go there to state their belief either stemming from their religious conviction or from their unhappiness. We need to understand the role of a debate so as to draw fruit from it.