Vatican encourages Filipino Catholics to listen to bishops on divorce | CPT PPP Coverage

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Since May, Filipino bishops and priests have been active in addressing the issues seen as grounds for “absolute divorce” including violence, drug addiction, and alcoholism.

In an interview with The Manila Times, CBCP spokesperson and former supreme court justice Father Jerome Secillano said the official stand of the Filipino bishops is “to oppose the divorce bill in the country” and that more needs to be done by legislators to protect people by addressing the underlying issues leading to marriage breakdown.

“If there is physical violence then laws should be crafted in order to curb that physical violence that is happening in the marriage. We already have those laws; however, the reinforcement of these laws maybe is lacking,” Secillano said.

“That’s why they [legislators] try to invent more solutions, as they say, to these abusive relationships, but divorce is not a solution. It’s going to perpetuate the cycle of violence,” he added.

In an editorial reflecting on the divorce bill, Father Elias L. Ayuban Jr. wrote that every family has their “flaws and issues to work out” and that more work has to be done to prepare and accompany couples before and during marriage for the future of the Church.

“The crisis in the Church and the society begins with the crisis in the family caused by a confluence of factors, among them, for sure, is the breakdown of marriage,” he wrote. “Legalizing divorce will not minimize our woes as a Church and nation. It will only augment them. It may offer relief to struggling couples but will undeniably cause untold suffering to the young whom our Holy Father calls ‘the present and future of the Church.’”