Italian Bishops Protest
Against Divorce Proposal
ROME — (NC) — The Italian Episcopal
Conference has called on all citizens to oppose
parliamentary proposals to relax legal restric
tions against divorce.
In a statement issued following its meet
ings in Rome (April 19 and 20), the confer
ence’s executive committee addressed a “press
ing appeal to all responsible representatives
of Italian society and to all citizens that in con
formity with constitutional norms, with Italian
tradition and with the Catholic conscience, the
family — founded on indissoluble marriage —
may be defended and a great offense and grave
injury to the institution of the family may be
averted.”
The statement, issued in the name of all
Italian bishops, was an obvious reference to
legislation currently being prepared for parlia
mentary debate by Socialist and Communist
party deputies which would allow divorce, at
least in restricted cases. Magazine and news
paper articles have been devoting increased
space to the problem in what appears to
be a preparation for a major political battle,
and it has become a widespread subject for
discussion among people.
ITALIAN LAW currently has no provision
for civil divorce under any circumstances.
Citing the ecumenical council’s teaching
against divorce in the Constitution on the
Church in the Modern World, the bishops’ state
ment reminded Italians of the “gravity of the
threat to the dignity of the person, particularly
with respect to women and children, and to the
unity and tranquillity of the family and the
good of the Italian community” if such laws
are passed.
It further commits all Catholics to a “most
responsible and firm action in defense of the
family and for the peace and affirmation of the
moral values of our country.”
THE MEETING, headed by the conference’s
president Giovanni Cardinal Urbani of Venice,
was held primarily to prepare an agenda for
the late June meeting of the entire episcopate
and to discuss moves to conform the confer
ence more completely with the new norms con
tained in council documents.
According to a conference spokesman,
“close attention was given to problems of reli
gious and moral life in Italy ... Questions
regarding the family and its foundation—indis
soluble marriage—were the object of particular
reflection. In this respect the conference felt
duty bound to express its thoughts clearly in a
special statement.”
(Other discussions, he said, concerned the
“spiritual and cultural conditions of the clergy
as well as of the laity. Relations between them
were the object of deepened study, attentive
proposals and precise conclusions which will be
made known in due course.”
THE INFLUENTIAL Milan daily, Corriere
della Sera, the spokesman said, found it sig
nificant that the statement on divorce came
from the Italian bishops rather than the Holy
See, indicating the “will of the present pontiff
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to limit direct intervention of the Vatican in
Italian politics to absolutely extraordinary
cases.”
The editor of the Vatican City daily, L Os
servatore Romano, Raimondo Manzini, wrote
the same day the bishops’ meeting ended (April
20) that “disavowal of the institution of the
family can only lead in the conscience of the
community to a weakening assessment of its
value to the point where the doctrine of the
unity and indissolubility of matrimony become
regarded as relative and rescindable— at least
with the passing of time. But this is a delusion.
The Church cannot change or overrule laws
established by God.”
The following day (April 21), Vittorio
Bachelet, president general of Italian Catholic
Action, discussed the problem at length in a
signed article appearing in the Catholic press.
“AS CITIZENS,” he said, “we are deeply
convinced that the indissolubility of marriage
has been and still is one of the strongholds of
our society because it has safeguarded the unity
of the family, which nobody wants to renounce,
at least not explicity.”
He said he recognized there are many
“painful cases” of marriages in shipwreck, but
he added that “legalization of these disasters
would not solve them, but would at most multi
ply them at everyone’s expense. . . .
“The dignity of man and woman, of mar
ried couples as human beings and of marriage,
on which the Italian constitution bases the
unity of the family recognized as a natural so
ciety, do not seem to us to permit these legal
izations. We say this, of course, on the basis of
our own vision of life, society and the family,
but also as citizens who want to realize in the
interest of society that substantial Christian
vision on which our constitution is based.”
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Commencement Address
Continued from page 4A
ish community, will also receive
an honorary degree.
The Rev. Aelred Graham, O.S.B.,
prominent Catholic theologian and
Calls Curia
Continued from page 1A
an attempt to prefer — as the
Lord said — the ‘mandatum Dei’
to customs established in the
course of time.”
(‘MANDATUM DEI,’ or God’s
commandment, is a consecrated
expression referring to Christ’s
command to love God above all
things and one’s neighbor as one
self.)
Pope Paul continued: “This is
a reform which psychologically
and practically is not easy.”
He recalled that the principal
reform Pope John wanted the
council to achieve was “not of
doctrines but of souls.”
IN A PASSAGE with strong ec
umenical overtones, he declared:
“may the orthodoxy which has
been given us never be for us a
reason for pride or prestige, an
argument for empty polemics or
against charity, a pretext for the
selfish laziness of the fortunate,
but rather a spur to greater study
and to more fervent prayer, in
deed to brotherly understanding,
to greater zeal.”
headmaster of the renowned Ivy
League Portsmouth Priory Pre
paratory School in Rhode Island,
will deliver the Baccalaureate ser
mon to the graduates and will re
ceive an honorary degree, togeth
er with Mr. Thomas A. Garrett,
prominent Catholic higher educa
tion leader.
Out of the largest senior class
in the Abbey’s history, 95 are
candidates for degrees at the May
24 exercises. Nine graduates are
from Gastonia, 13 from Belmont,
three from Mt. Holly, ten from
Charlotte, one from Bessemer
City, and one from Crouse.
Five Graduates
Continued from page 1A
and Bernard ,J. Dioguardi, of Baby
lon, New York, a graduate of the
class of 1965, is in university work
in Lima, Peru.
The Alumni Office is now plan
ning a reunion and a symposium
of these former students when
they return home to stimulate fur
ther interest and enthusiasm for
the Peace Corps work and dedica
tion. A good number of present
Abbey students are contemplat
ing enlistment in the Corps.
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