[Daphne – Bully for you. I don’t know things because my husband is a lawyer. I know them because I’ve found out.]

[Daphne – If you do not meet those criteria, you can’t get a divorce from a reputable jurisdiction in the first place. If divorces are not registered in Malta, it is not because the criteria weren’t met per se, but because the divorce was obtained somewhere like Las Vegas or Mexico.]

[Daphne – Funny way for them to go about it. A general public/press statement would have been more appropriate than an article in Malta Today.]

[Daphne – Its not the Maltese public registry which lays down those conditions, but the jurisdiction which issues the divorce decree. It stands to reason that you can’t just apply for a British divorce if you have no connection with the country. But that’s not the point. The point is that Maltese couples can and do obtain divorces elsewhere. It’s become even easier since the law was changed to allow us dual citizenship.]

I’m Catholic and am in favour of married priests. All the apostles were married except for John.

All I’m saying Pat is that it’s a whole big mess. I cannot understand why we would need to marry in the first place if we want the right for divorce. That’s what some couples are doing: no ceremonies, no officialdom, they just live together and procreate……back to basics, sort of.

[Daphne – Rights, John, it’s all about rights. And that is why the state, and not the Catholic Church, is the legal enforcer.]

I think that this debate is useless, the system has been by-passed. How can one hold two mature people from living together, or from leaving one another if someone gets fed-up? I think there is anarchy in this field.

Well you will be pleased to know that I will be leaving your beautiful country in a few hours. Your last comment has done nothing more than confirm my beliefs about you. I think you should quit while you’re ahead!

[Daphne – Exactly why do you imagine I would or should give a damn about what you think? I am not trolling for votes here, still less for the approval of residents of Australia.]

It’d be hysterical if it wasn’t so ridiculous. Here in Austria there’s a number of married or cohabiting (Catholic) priests, who are accepted by their communities and who have established families. This is one Catholic Universal church, remember. So if these priests are establishing God-fearing families, shouldn’t they have the right to marry? What would the ‘defenders of the family’ have to say about this?

I wonder if the reactionaries in Malta are aware of what is happening in the Catholic Church outside Malta’s tiny borders. Not their problem, I suppose Dun Anton will say.

Is it one church, inspired by God, or isn’t it?