The present divorce debate brings back so many memories of the terrible politico-religious crisis that crippled Malta in the early sixties.

I was then just eligible to vote, and yes, I voted for the Labour Party.

At the time, the local Roman Catholic hierarchy threatened anybody who voted for that party with eternal damnation.

Now, 50 years later, we have that same Church declaring that anybody, who like me has been divorced and is in a permanent relationship, cannot receive Holy Communion.

However, divorcees who are not in a permanent relationship are allowed to receive Holy Communion.

Is this not encouraging promiscuity!

It is basically telling such divorcees to live the playboy or playgirl life, and look for females or males of easy virtue and prostitutes.

Well, I certainly would not want to be in that category, just in order to be able to receive Holy Communion.

I have been happily remarried for almost 25 years, and my present wife and I will be celebrating our silver wedding anniversary this coming June.

Finally, there is an irony in the medieval way the local Roman Catholic Church here in Malta is acting at the moment.

When I was serving as a doctor in the British Forces at Nato some 14 years ago, in Belgium, my son, the product of my present marriage, received his first Holy Communion there.

Who do you think gave him this sacrament?

A wonderful married American priest with children!

Yes, he was a former married Protestant priest, who converted to Catholicism!

Sadly, the words “double standards” keep on haunting me.

Raymond Bencini

ZEBBUG