“Rapid divorce” results in broken families in Peru, warns archbishop

Lima, Peru, Apr 1, 2008 / 10:32 am

In a statement issued this week, the president of the Bishops’ Conference of Peru, Archbishop Miguel Cabrejos rejected the new “rapid divorce” law passed by Congress, saying it “does nothing to strengthen and fortify the family; on the contrary, it weakens it and results in its rupture or separation.”

The archbishop recalled that everyone has the duty to “strengthen and fortify” the family “in harmony with the norms and principles proclaimed in Peru’s constitution.”

“We cannot forget that our constitution consecrates the defense of the human person and respect for his dignity as the supreme end of society and of the State; but the natural environment for the development of the person and his dignity will always be the family, which the State is committed to strengthening,” he said.

Archbishop Cabrejos noted that civil marriage in Peru is a “contractual act” that must be strengthened before it is allowed to be dissolved, and therefore “the Public Ministry is part of the judicial process of conventional separation, because its purpose is to defend marriage as a stable institution and therefore it opposes these processes.”

“The proposed norm, therefore, goes against the Constitution because it does not strengthen marriage and the family but rather weakens it, and no thought is given to the psychological and emotional damage to the children,” he said.

Therefore, he went on, “true marriage is based not only on human norms that are changeable but on something transcendent that is: ‘conjugal love’.  What is this conjugal love? It is not only an emotion, a sentiment, but rather a personal, specific relationship between a man and a woman that requires surrender and reciprocal donation throughout life.”

“People need to be conscious that entering into marriage and establishing a family is a very serious act of great responsibility, for which they should be dully prepared, keeping in mind that that marriage should be stable and lasting,” the archbishop stated, adding that leaders must guarantee the stability of the family and of marriage.