Sir, - On a visit to Ireland I happened to read Kathryn Holmquist's article on marriage tribunals (Weekend, September 18th) and I found it deeply disturbing. The anger with which the article was apparently written may have resulted in some incoherence, but I had difficulty in understanding her line of thought. Certainly some of the points she makes about marriage tribunals generally do not apply to those operating in England and perhaps now that Ireland has its own divorce laws the tribunals in Ireland may come more in line with English ones.
In this country no petition is accepted by a tribunal unless a civil divorce has already been granted. The only people who petition are those who are considering remarriage within the Catholic Church. It is entirely optional. The procedure is often slow, but from my experience as a solicitor acting in matrimonial cases, the civil procedure is often just as slow and is certainly far more intrusive and humiliating for the parties.
Unlike Ms Holmquist's description of tribunals in her article, the marriage tribunals in England make use of lay men and women, though the majority of the judges are priests. Lay people like me act on a voluntary unpaid basis and do so out of a feeling of compassion for those who need help to guide them through the bureaucracy of Canon Law.
More disturbing than her criticism of the tribunals is her criticism of the Catholic Church and particularly its attitude to marriage. On my frequent visits to Ireland it is impossible to be unaware of the current fashion in the media for complaining about and even mocking the Church. I realise that there have been far too many recent disclosures of the abuse of their position by people in authority in the Church in Ireland and that this may justify criticism of the authorities; but it seems to me that the criticism often goes far beyond that and is seldom constructive. Ireland is in danger of being presented to the world as a nation of "victims" or whingers, largely because of the media space given to people with a chip on their shoulders.
I doubt if the situation in Ireland is much different from England where one opinion poll after another shows that the only group of people held in lower esteem by the public than journalists are politicians. A little less arrogance in public criticism of others by journalists would seem desirable.
The most disturbing section of Ms Holmquist's article is her last paragraph. She implies that the partners to an ideal marriage should not be prepared for any self-sacrifice and should be willing to separate whenever either of them choose. Is she really serious? She seems to be advocating an approach to marriage which has been tried in England during the past 30 years or so by the bulk of the population and one only has to be half-aware of what has happened as a result to see it as a very bad model. Does she really want a society with the highest rate of teenage pregnancies and the highest rate of teenage drug addition in Europe and where about one in four children suffers from some form of mental or psychiatric problem - all of which coincides with the highest rate of marriage breakdown?
By all means criticise whatever deserves it, including the Church and other public institutions; but I am saddened that the level of criticism in the Irish media so often appears as simply negative or even juvenile. - Yours, etc.,
J. L. G. Cash, Cherrimans, Haslemere, Surrey, England.