Better Burn Than Divorce

The island of Malta is holding a referendum on whether to permit divorce, and the Catholic Church has been putting the case for a No vote with the expectable degree of honesty and fair-mindedness. For weeks the place has been covered in posters depicting a child alongside the slogan, "I trust you with my future - vote No"; given what has emerged in recent years about the Vatican's concern for the welfare of children, this shows an encouraging level of satiric self-irony, but it appears that not everyone has taken it in the proper spirit. "This is about protecting the church courts that offer annulment as an alternative to divorce," said one of the MPs who drafted the divorce law. The activities of the ecclesiastical tribunals oblige the Church to absorb a certain amount of worldly wealth in legal fees, thus protecting secular lawyers from the grip of Mammon. Nevertheless, the archbishop of Malta fulminated that "marriage was created by God, Jesus ruled out divorce and we are therefore telling the faithful to vote no". Jesus also disapproved of wealth, ostentation and hypocrisy, but it is as yet unclear whether the archbishop of Malta would urge his congregation to vote Yes in a referendum on whether to sell off the cathedrals of St John's and St Paul's and give the proceeds to the poor.