Last week, Deborah Schembri was informed that she would be allowed once again to work in the Ecclesiastical Tribunal, which deals with annulment of marriages. Dr Schembri had been removed from the list of lawyers permitted to exercise their profession in the tribunal during the divorce campaign. She was the chairperson of the pro-divorce movement.

Her dismissal had raised questions on the Church’s sense of tolerance and was interpreted to be an attack on the right of clients to have a lawyer of their own choice. It had also embittered the pro-divorce lobby, which saw it as a way to hit back at the movement on a personal level. Most of all, however, the dismissal had a negative effect on Dr Schembri, who was deprived of her means of income from her representations before the Church tribunal. While off the list, many of her clients had to seek new lawyers to represent them before the Church tribunal.

The announcement of her re-instatement was not made through official channels – the Curia did not say anything about it, just as much as it had not said anything when Dr Schembri was dismissed. It is probable that the Curia prefers to remain silent on issues of a personal nature. It was Dr Schembri herself who said that she had received a call from Archbishop Mgr Paul Cremona OP who told her the good news.

Her re-instatement is certainly a move in the right direction. It means that the Church has (finally?) realised that it had committed a mistake in preventing Dr Schembri from carrying on with her work. After all, Dr Schembri had always said that she believed in the indissolubility of marriage in the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church, but that there should be a distinction between this and civil marriage.

It is perhaps the first concrete step the Church has made to try to bridge the gap that has been created between itself and the sector of society that voted in favour of the introduction of divorce legislation. The Church lost support during the weeks leading up to the divorce referendum, in which it played an important role through the financing of the anti-divorce lobby campaign.

It is now trying to earn back some of the respect it has lost.