was saddening to read Paula Davies' report of the divorce of Mary X. Mary X speaks of the "stigma" of divorce and indeed the article pinpoints a considerable difference in attitude to the abandonment of marriage and the abandonment of the priesthood — both equally serious sacramental conditions one would think.
Now that laicisation seems to take place at the drop of a biretta, and ex-priests and their wives are accepted as a matter of course, employed in Catholic schools etc., it is distressing to think that we cannot show at least equal charity and tolerance in the case of a broken marriage, especially to the guiltless party in a divorce.
