Pastoral Letter
“The Indissolubility of marriage
is rooted in the Natural order”
September 13, 1975
To my dear People of God in the Archdiocese of Manila:
Over the past several weeks,
you have no doubt noticed the waging of a quiet but determined campaign, carried
out through the media, designed to make divorce acceptable to the population.
So intensive has this campaign
been, and so great has been its impact on the people that I have decided to
end my silence and speak out my views on the matter.
As the Roman Catholic Archbishop
of Manila, I am, of course, against divorce and against its legalization
and adoption in our country. This stand is based on sound moral and theological
reasons, and it is the stand that all good Catholics must have. Christ could
not have expressed it more clearly when He said: “What God has put together,
let no man put asunder.“
However, since I do not want
to be accused of imposing the Catholic position on people who are non-Catholics,
I shall not defend my position on Catholic and canonical grounds, but on the
purely natural level. I shall try to prove that, whether we like or not,
the indissolubility of marriage is rooted in the natural order, in the natural
law.
My friends, have you ever stopped
to consider why, among all the members of the animal kingdom, the human baby
is the most helpless for the longest period of time? When a puppy is born,
for example, it can almost immediately stand up on its four legs and walk
unsteadily to where its mother is waiting to nurse him. After a chick is hatched,
it can also walk immediately and, after a few minutes, it can start looking
for its food. The same situation holds true among almost all other animals.
It is true among cats and carabaos, rabbits and horses and other mammals.
But the human baby is different.
When it is born, it is completely helpless. Unless the mother feeds him, it
will die of starvation. It cannot even crawl to the mother’s breast. The
mother must pick him up in her arms and place her nipple in his mouth. Unless
the infant is clothed, it will die from exposure and pneumonia. Unless it
is bathed regularly, it will die from infection and other diseases.
And this baby’s helplessness
does not end with infancy. Even after it is able to walk and feed itself,
the food must be bought and prepared by others. And, when this child reaches
school age, he still will not be able to educate himself. His parents must
provide him with money for his schooling. I could go on and on, but I think
I have made my point clearly. In fact, in our society today, most children
remain dependent on their parents until the day they graduate from college
or even later.
What am I trying to say by
all this? I am saying that because of the utter helplessness of the human
baby, the human mother cannot be like the dog or the cat and mate with just
any male. And the human father, unlike the rooster or the tomcat, cannot escape
his responsibility in fathering a child.
Bringing up a baby is a tremendous
responsibility. And the mother cannot do it alone. She cannot be expected
to discharge her duties as a mother, and still go out
and earn a living for herself and the baby. She must have help, and it is
the husband who must help her by going out and working.
This explains why, among human
beings the stability of marriage is necessary. It is
necessary for the proper upbringing of the children, for their emotional stability.
The stability and happiness
of a marriage can more easily be attained if there is genuine love between
the partners, if they are mature, if they understand that they must sacrifice
for each other and for their children, and if they realize that marriage,
by its very nature, must be permanent.
If there is love between husband
and wife, then this joint responsibility becomes a joy and a fulfillment.
Then it becomes easy. But — and this happens many times — if there is no love,
the joint responsibility is still there, and there is no escaping from it.
From all the foregoing, my
friends, it becomes clear why the marriage bond should be indissoluble. Even
if we disregard Catholic norms of morality, even if Christ did not say that
what God has put together let no man put asunder, the marriage tie should
be permanent. The good and the welfare of the children demand it. And this
is true whether the parents are Catholic or non-Catholic, Muslims or Buddhists,
baptized or pagan. This is the natural law at work.
But, as it is now being advocated
so forcefully by certain quarters, if divorce is legalized in the Philippines,
what would happen? The welfare of the children would be jeopardized, the stability
of the family would be endangered, the fabric of Filipino society would be
eroded, and the cult of selfishness among the parents would be propagated.
Moreover, the essence of love would be perverted and misunderstood.
If any couple contemplating
marriage know that a divorce can be easily secured if the rnarriage
does not work, they would be less careful in taking the step, less wary in
choosing a partner. They will not make a serious and determined effort to
make adjustments. They will think only of themselves and they will make a
beeline for the divorce court the moment something goes wrong in the relationship.
This couple, in short, will
acquire a divorce mentality. And this is the kind of mentality that has become
the curse of the Western World.
In some Western countries,
for example, one out of every two marriages ends in divorce. How many other
marriages break up without the parties filing for divorce is not known, but
the number is probably considerable. It is no wonder, therefore, why experts
are getting worried over the disintegration of the Western family, why so
many of their children are experimenting with sexual license and joining sub-cultures
and counter-cultures, why there has been a general breakdown in morality.
My dear brothers and sisters
in Christ: I say that if we allow divorce to be legalized in this country,
if we allow our people to acquire the divorce mentality, we would be opening
the floodgates to greater evils. I am sure you agree with me when I say that
every effort should be exerted to insure the strength of the Filipino family
and to save it from disintegration. Divorce is per se a severance of valid
matrimonial bond and therefore a legalized adultery.
But, while I am against divorce,
I do not ignore the possibility that there may be quite a number of marriages
where it has become humanly impossible for the partners to continue living
with each other. Such marriages do exist, and I say that it is better for
everyone concerned — better also for the children — if the parties were to
separate. For this purpose, the Church has set up tribunals in every diocese
to decide on these cases. If, as has happened, the tribunals find that these
marriages were invalid from the beginning — perhaps for lack of consent, perhaps
because of impotence, perhaps for other reasons which I cannot go into at
this time, then the marriage is declared null and void from the start, meaning
that there had been no marriage at all. If, on the other hand, the marriage
is found valid but behavioral scientists think it would be dangerous or impossible
for the partners to continue sharing the same roof, then a decree of canonical
separation — something similar to legal separation — is issued.
To sum it all up, therefore,
I am against the promulgation of a decree legalizing divorce, not only on
moral and theological grounds, but on the ground that divorce is inherently
contrary to the natural law on the indissolubility of marriage. I am against
divorce because a divorce law, I am convinced, will spawn more evils than
it will cure. I believe that, instead of divorce, a decree updating the laws
of the State regarding nullity, annulment and legal separation is in order.
God bless you, and remember,
I love you all very dearly.
(Sgd.) + JAIME L. SIN, D.D.
Archbishop of Manila
Manila, September 13, 1975
