‘It’s about providing an out to many people whom our laws have locked into a life of misery.’
THIS whole divorce issue is starting to divide the country. Not in a really bad way, because we’ve long been divided anyway along so many fault lines; but divided nevertheless about an issue that has long been settled in most parts of the globe but remains a touchy topic in good old Catholic Philippines.
Divorce.
Note that divorce is in the law books in the Republic of Italy, and the Republic of Italy is where you find Rome, and it is in Rome where you find the independent Vatican City that is the heart and soul of the Roman Catholic Church.
And there’s no question that Italy is one of the most Catholic of countries in Europe if not in the world, actually ranking fifth globally with the biggest Catholic population. By sheer number, Brazil, Mexico, the Philippines, the United States and Italy are the countries with the biggest Catholic populations. The Philippines has the highest, percentage-wise, among the top five at 80%, while Mexico and Italy are at 75% and Brazil at 50%.
Among the top five, ours is the only country where there is no divorce law, and some people even read the 1987 Constitution as prohibiting the passage of a divorce law — although a reading of the minutes of the debates of the Constitutional Commission that wrote the charter (specifically the exchange between Fr. Joaquin Bernas and Atty. Jose Luis Gascon) show that it was never the intent of the framers of the 1987 Constitution to prevent the passage of such a law.
In fact, it appears that ours is the only independent nation-state in the whole world, in the whole universe in fact, that doesn’t have a divorce law! Ours and the Vatican actually but let’s not count the Vatican because as far as I know they don’t have married priests or nuns there. So think about it: either we know something the whole world doesn’t, or the whole world knows something we don’t.
But now that the House has finally passed a divorce law, opposition from those claiming to speak on behalf of their faith (both clergy and laity alike) has been more than vocal; some people I’ve never seen actively posting on Facebook before now proudly declare how Catholic they are and as such devote Catholics how opposed they are to the proposed law.
Guys, take a breather: the divorce law has nothing to do with your faith. It’s a civil law thing because marriage is a civil matter with the law governing marriage being the basis of all the rights, responsibilities and obligations that a married couple are subject to and submit to. It’s separate and distinct from the religious obligations that getting married in a church or before some religious leader brings.
So there’s no issue about pleasing or displeasing God in this debate. Ask the Italians who live under the very nose of the Pope himself.
And as I’ve said before: let the divorcees deal with their God as they deal with each other.
Let’s not poke our fingers into their affairs.
If you are in a happy marriage, that is good for you. Sana ol, as the millennials would say.
But if you oppose divorce just because you have a good marriage, what type of warped thinking is that? It’s like those who have no cancer saying that since they don’t have cancer they are opposed to chemotherapy and no one should undergo chemotherapy.
This whole debate is not about pleasing God, which should be an individual struggle. It’s about providing an out to many people whom our laws have locked into a life of misery.
Surely your God or mine isn’t a God of misery, happy in keeping people miserable forever?
