Divorce, Canonical annulment, Marriage

28 March 2005

Dear Mr. Cruz,

I wish to thank you for featuring in your column, Separate Opinion, the issue of divorce ("The proposed divorce law", Philippine Daily Inquirer, March 27, 2005). I do not normally read articles in the opinion section; but when I saw the word "divorce" in the title, it instantly caught my attention and interest. I read and re-read it several times. It is really an interesting article!

After reading your article many times, I had the chance to identify some of the things that tickled my mind at first. Please allow me to point out those things to you.

From paragraph 11 up to 15, you seem to imply that canonical annulment in the Catholic Church is similar to divorce. I beg to disagree with you. I do not think canonical annulment and divorce are the same. It may appear that both dissolve the marriage bond, but if you look more closely, the process of dissolving it is very different. The difference is in the consent mutually and freely given. May I explain myself.

In canonical annulment it must be understood that the parties to a marriage covenant are a baptized man and woman, free to contract marriage, who freely express their consent. "To be free" means: 1) not being under constraint; and 2) not impeded by any natural or ecclesiastical law. The Catholic Church holds the exchange of consent between spouses to be the indispensable element that makes the marriage. If consent is lacking there is no marriage. The consent consists in a human act by which the partners mutually give themselves to each other: "I take you to be my wife" - "I take you to be my husband". This consent that binds the spouses to each other finds its fulfillment in the two becoming one flesh. The consent must be an act of the will of each of the contracting parties, free of coercion or grave external fear. No human power can substitute for this consent. If this freedom is lacking the marriage is invalid. For this reason the Catholic Church, after an examination of the situation by competent ecclesiastical tribunal, can declare the nullity of a marriage, i.e. that the marriage never existed. In this case the contracting parties are free to marry, provided the natural obligations of a previous union is discharged.

In divorce, on the other hand, there is no attempt to ascertain if there is free and mutual consent exchanged to begin with. The proceedings goes directly to the dissolution of the bond, division of conjugal properties and custody of children. You can find thousands of examples of such divorces in the US.

How can you consider the two to be the same? Please, Mr. Cruz, the two are totally different concepts.

Secondly, I fully agree with your statement in paragraph 17 when you said that what makes marriage inviolable is the love of the spouses for each other, not the compulsion of law or even the Constitution. But I was surprised to read that you consider this "love" as just a "sentiment" that could be betrayed. No wonder it is easy for you to accept divorce, since sentiment easily evaporates when people are not in the right mood and mold anymore. I beg to disagree with you in this point! For me, the "love of spouses for each other" involves a totality, in which all the element of the person enter - appeal of the body and instinct, power of feeling and affectivity, aspiration of the spirit and of will. It aims at a deeply personal unity, a unity that, beyond union in one flesh, leads to forming one heart and soul; it demands indissolubility and fruitfulness in definitive mutual giving and it is open to fertility. In a word it is a question of the normal characteristics of all natural conjugal love but with a new significance which not only purifies and strengthen them, but raises them to the extent of making them the expression of specifically Christian values.

Thirdly, I fully agree with all the sad cases you described in paragraph 9 and 10. Such cases are real problems. I think these disordered cases we notice so painfully does not stem from the nature of man and woman nor from their relations, but from a deep spiritual disorder in one or both spouses. It has something to do with their relationship with God. I am convinced that a truly effective solution to these cases should include God in the equation. In my discussions with my friends and acquaintances, it seems that these cases happen among couples who have not contracted marriage in the Catholic Church. Most of them are in live-in arrangement. So why make divorce a law that would dissolve a legal marriage bond in order to provide a solution to these cases when most of these cases do not have that legal bond in the first place? Moreover, divorce will open the flood gates of abuses the would result in more abandoned children and broken homes as experienced in the US and other countries.

I really doubt the motives of the feminist groups that are pushing for the divorce bill. I smell avarice in their agenda. Some women stand to gain more wealth and material prosperity from divorce. They can demand half of the conjugal property which the husbands may have single-handedly earned and worked for. All these at the expense of the moral and spiritual well-being of the affected children. It is pure materialism and selfishness.

Thank you, Mr. Cruz, for your time. I hope you do not mind my contradicting you in several points. The integrity of our society is at stake in this debate.

As you may have noticed already, I am not a good writer. You probably noticed a lot of grammatical and styling errors. The parts that you think are written properly are direct quotations from the Catechism of the Catholic Church. I am not a lawyer. I am just a college graduate who is an avid reader of Christian ethics. I took the opportunity provided by your article to share my ideas on the divorce issue. Thank you and good day!