How odd it is that people continue to confuse what is secular with what is religious. It is as though they cannot adjust to having two authorities in their lives – religious authority and state authority – and so they wish that the two authorities would converge on all issues that affect them, so that they are not torn between the one and the other.

Why else would some people repeatedly question the Catholic Church’s stance on divorce and gay marriage, for example? Then we get headlines like this one: “Pope: Gay marriage is non-negotiable.” Of course it is – no clear-thinking person would expect the Catholic Church to rethink its teaching on marriage between two persons of the same gender when we all know, don’t we, that marriage involves – whisper the word – sex, and sex between two men is Very Bad. Strangely enough, sex between two women does not seem to excite the same level of condemnation, possibly because there is no biblical spilling of seed involved.

People seem reluctant to accept the principle that the Catholic Church is free to set whatever rules and regulations it likes for its members. This reluctance might have its roots in the years when church and state were one seemingly homogenous entity, and when – only two generations ago – Malta was run like the Catholic equivalent of an Islamic state. If you were Maltese, you were considered Catholic by default. Whether Catholic or not, you had to abide by the rules because there was no alternative. You could only get married in church, for example, because there was no civil marriage – and if you were Maltese and unconfirmed, or otherwise deemed not to be living as a Catholic should, then there were 101 hoops to jump through and empty promises to be made about bringing up your children as Catholics before you were given permission to marry. And you couldn’t tell them where to put their permission and go off and get married in the public registry, because there was no such marriage to be had. That was a bad thing – no different to what happens under Islam today in some countries (but not all).

So obviously, with all that interference and use of influence on secular leaders, a huge well of anger built up against the Catholic Church, which came to be looked at ambivalently – as an oppressor as well as a paternalistic saviour and leader. Because we still cannot make the separation between church and state in our heads – and admittedly, we are not helped to do so by the government, which sometimes behaves as though it is an extension of the Curia – we try to press the church into coming in line with secular thought. It is as though we imagine that, unless the church gives its approval, the government will not enact the appropriate legislation.

In this, we are right. I have no doubt at all that if the Vatican were to make the announcement that people may divorce in certain cases, then we would have divorce legislation on the morrow. But it’s the way that we think which is wrong. Instead of harrying the Vatican to do the impossible and undo rules which are based on centuries of entrenched thought, so that our government may follow and (more importantly to some) so that we may do what we want to do while still being in line with “Catholicism”, we should grow up and think more maturely. Instead of colluding in the government’s behaviour as bridesmaid to the Catholic Church, we should stand up and insist that the government leaves the Catholic Church out of the legislative equation, just as the other 24 governments of the European Union do – with the less-than-admirable exception of Poland, which has heavy-handedness.

Growing up means coming to terms with the fact that living as Catholics means sticking to the rules, and not trying to have Catholicism reworked in our own image so that we can do what we want to do without feeling guilty or “wrong”. Growing up means understanding that just because a person is Maltese he or she doesn’t also have to be Catholic, and that baptism and a Catholic upbringing do not make you a Catholic for the rest of your life, whether you want to be one or not. This is not Islam we are talking about. Growing up means that, when you finally come to terms with the fact that you don’t agree with most or any of the rules that differentiate Catholicism from other forms of Christianity, you must stop calling yourself a Catholic. But mature thinking also means that you don’t have to fight Catholicism to do this, or run Catholicism down, like a rebellious teenager trying to break away from a parent.

Growing up means understanding that the country should not be run according to the rules of a religion just because the majority belong to that religion. Mature thinking means realising that when you disagree with something on religious grounds, you are free to make your disagreement known, but you are not free to try to force others to live as you would wish them to live, or to do what you would wish them to do.

For the Catholic Church to be against gay marriage, divorce and the remarriage of divorcees is entirely consistent with its philosophy. You must have a very poor ability to think logically if you can’t see this. The Catholic Church’s teaching won’t change because it can’t change. To expect it to change misses the point entirely: that we live in a secular state, and that if we want gay marriage or divorce, or whatever else the church doesn’t agree with, it is the government and the opposition we have to lobby, and not the Vatican. Any gay marriage that becomes possible is going to be a civil marriage in any case, like the remarriage of a divorced person, so the Catholic Church is not going to be involved at any stage of the process. The church is free to get involved in the debate like anyone else and like any other organisation, but what it thinks has no direct bearing on the matter because a marriage between two persons of the same sex or between divorced people is a secular thing and not a religious one. It has been rammed into our brains that marriage is a religious act, but really it is a secular contract involving rights and obligations and property, and before the Council of Trent in the late 16th century, there was no question about that whatsoever, which is why the most important person present was the notary rather than the priest.

Now if there are people around who want to be divorced and Catholic, or homosexuals in a relationship and Catholic, they should grow up and understand once and for all that it’s not possible. They have to decide what’s most important to them – their religion or their relationship. The one thing they shouldn’t be doing is staying in the relationship and moaning about how old-fashioned the church is, and how “it has to change”. Why should it change – just because you said so? You’re free to look for another religion, or just to waft about under the general heading of Christianity. But please don’t imagine that you will ever see a world in which marriages between two men are celebrated in Roman Catholic churches, or that the Pope will ever say that divorce is OK with him.

Instead of agitating for this to happen, you should learn more about Catholic philosophy and understand why it is impossible. Galileo Galilei was a different kettle of fish. Physical facts proved him right and the Catholic Church wrong. What we are dealing with here is ideas, not facts: the idea that marriage is indissoluble, the idea that sex between two men is evil, the idea that sex outside marriage goes against God’s wishes – and ideas like this cannot be negated with facts, like the fact that the earth is spherical and not flat, or facts about the revolution of the planets.

Growing up means sticking to the rules or getting out of the club. Growing up means understanding that if you want divorce or gay marriage, you have to get it from the secular authorities and not from the religious ones. Growing up means realising that this is precisely why all advanced democracies separate church and state and stick to it strictly. Growing up means knowing that the higher authority – the one that counts, because it makes the laws – is the government and not the church. Growing up means asking yourself why even in Italy nobody cares what the Catholic Church thinks about legislation on gay marriage because it is the government which legislates, and not the church, as it has already done in the case of divorce and abortion.

Above all, growing up means understanding that you keep to the laws of your religion because you want to, but you keep to the laws of your country because you have to. Therein lies the difference.