Demand For Divorce Growing In Colombia

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31092, 22 June 1966, Page 2

Demand For Divorce Growing In Colombia

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter) BOGOTA. A movement in favour of making divorce legal appears to be gathering momentum in Columbia in spite of the rejection of a draft divorce law by Parliament. The draft law would have made both divorce and civil marriage legal. Both are banned at present.

In a country where an estimated 90 per cent of the population is Roman Catholic, the issue is determined by a Concordat signed between Colombia and the Vatican in 1888 and strengthened by what is known as the Concha Law (called after the then President, Jose Vincent Concha) in 1924.

Civil marriage and, of course, divorce were forbidden under the Concordat. The Concha Law went further. That describes as a “public sinner unworthy to receive the sacraments or a Christian burial, anyone who marries outside the Catholic Church.” (This is tantamount to excommunication.) Any couple desirous of contracting a civil marriage, it adds, must publicly renounce the Roman Catholic faith.

Although the church stood firmly against the draft divorce law and the Archbishop of Bogota, Cardinal

Luis Concha Cordoba, said that anyone who supported it would commit a “grave sin,” there is growing support for divorce. Supporters include women of ail ages. The leader of the prodivorce movement is Senator Ivan Lopez Botero, a Liberal of Left-wing sympathies, who claims that he and his supporters will finally “overcome the church’s interference in family life.” Senator Botero, aged 42, was himself married by the cfiurch. The father of three sons and two daughters, he

considers his family life “normal and happy.” FOUR IN FAVOUR

The debate on the draft law by the Senate Commission showed, to some extent, where the political parties stand on the issue. Of the 16 Senators who took part, four Liberals voted in favour of the draft law and seven Conservatives and one liberal against it The remaining three Liberals were absent from the final session owing to “illness” or for “other reasons.” The sixteenth Senator was known to be genuinely ill. Throughout the debates, the church’s opposition was unequivocal. Monsignor Jorge Giraldo, Bishop of Paste, capital of Natino department on the Ecuadorian frontier, wrote to the vice-president of the commission (Senator Gerrards Jurado) begging him not to support the “disastrous project which,” he said, “compromises the moral, religious and social future of our people.” Senator Jurado, a 55-year-old Conservative, replied that he would use his voice on the commission to expound the fundamental Christian principles inspired by divine providence. “I await (the help of) your prayers," he added, “to give battle to the enemies of religion. .. .” The Senator asked the Bishop to post notices on the doors of churches in Pasto inviting signatures from those who opposed the proposed law. He also asked the faithful to send letters and cables to the commission signifying their rejection of divorce. The sponsor of the draft law has accepted his defeat, and concedes its rejection as a victory for the church. He considers, however, that he has achieved something since the subject of divorce is no longer “taboo” and can now be publicly discussed in Colombia for the first time. BIRTH CONTROL

Another delicate problem in Colombian family life is that of birth control.

In spite of the high annual birth rate of 3.2 per cent, there are no official provisions for contraception in the country. The church is opposed to any artificial means of limiting the family. Contraceptive pills, which first appeared in Colombia about two years ago, are now used extensively.

Representatives of pharmaceutical laboratories calculate that last year 10 million pills were sold in Colombia. This year, they estimate, the total may reach 20 million. At first, doctors opposed the use of the pills, but their opposition has now diminished.