Sir, - Fintan O'Toole's excellent article (Opinion, January 8th) explains very clearly the problems faced by the Irish Catholic bishops in commenting on such issues as marriage and cohabitation. This same dilemma faces their lordships in the matter the re-marriage of people after a church annulment, now that the State has enacted divorce legislation here.The practice by the Irish Hierarchy for years past has been to conduct second marriages for a proportion of annulled persons - those deemed eligible - and provide them with a second spouse, without any regard whatever to the existence of a current legal spouse, and sometimes family. This practice ignored, and so neither recognised nor respected, all the legislation supporting the institution of marriage. In the enlightened society in which we live today this can only be looked upon as scandalous, and it is very difficult to square it with Archbishop Brady's view that the Church opposed divorce in order to protect this very legislation.Lest anyone run away with the idea that some excuse for this activity may lie in the misty recesses of Canon Law, on need look no further than Britain, where the Catholic Hierarchy will not even begin to process an annulment application, let alone provide a second spouse, until the person applying for the annulment has already been granted a civil divorce. This policy respects the law of the land and had the added benefit of limiting spouses of British Catholics to one per person, at any one time.It will be interesting to see whether the Irish bishops will now adopt the same policy, if only in the interest of law and order, and it is arguable that a great deal of their credibility in claiming to support the institution of marriage will rest on their decision. - Yours, etc.,Nick Cummins,Dublin 14.