I don't mind Mary Camilleri expressing some rather flippant views about what she disparagingly terms 'a quick-fix solution' (The Sunday Times, July 25). But I do object when she misquotes what I have said to support her argument.

She wrote: "Martin Scicluna talked about long lines of separated couples stretching out from Mellieħa to Birżebbuġa or whatever (sic). How does he know? If there are so many, how come it is only the vocal few whose opinion keeps getting shoved down our throats?"

What I actually wrote was said in the context of the Maltese Church's response to my report, 'For Worse, For Better: Remarriage After Legal Separation', in which Proġettimpenn attempted "to prove that the reality is not as bad as has been painted".

I showed that in 1995 there were 5,098 annulled, divorced or separated individuals in Malta. By 2005 this figure had risen to 13,354. And the forecast by the respected Institute for Research on the Signs of the Times, Discern - the Maltese Church's own advisers - was that, on present trends, the number of individuals in broken marriages would reach 35,000 by 2015.

What I then went on to say was: "What is it, therefore, about the Maltese Church that makes it adopt a high-handed attitude to the facts? Why is it that it appears not to wish to consider the severity or validity of these figures?... If the Maltese Church were to form up these people shoulder to shoulder they would stretch in one unbroken line from the Curia in Floriana to the National Stadium at Ta' Qali.

"In less than six years' time that line of people could well stretch from the Curia to the far shore of Comino. Even if this were half that number, does this not matter to the Maltese Church? Is the Maltese Church to persist in pretending that there is no problem and that there is no need to tackle it by all means possible, including new legal remedies on the lines proposed in my report?"

I did not say that all these people were 'crying out for divorce', nor would I ever use the pejorative term 'a quick-fix solution' for something as painful as a broken marriage. It is hypocritical to pretend there is no problem. Equally, it is cynical and irresponsible to ignore it. And it would be uncharitable to suppose that matters can remain as they are.

A civilised society has to deal with the consequences of broken marriages as prudently, fairly and justly as it can by providing the legal remedies for a well-ordered process of civil dissolution for marriages which have clearly failed.