The Culture of Divorce

We live in the world of the disposable: if it's broken, you buy a new one; in a world of immediate satisfaction, with just one click, you have everything in your hands now. Unfortunately, this kind of thinking invaded also our relationships: “if I am not happy, it's better to separate”. We experience, as never before, the increase of divorces and the unions without marriage, to make rupture “easier”. And who suffers with that? All of us, the society as a whole experiences the great evil that the divorce's culture brought to our lives, mainly for the lives of our children.

God wanted man and women to merge inseparably in one flesh, with a bound of love faithful until death. What's the reason of that? Merely moralism? An “old fashioned” Church, that doesn't understand the needs of the modern man? NO. The indissolubility of the matrimony was created BECAUSE IT IS THE BEST FOR THE HUMAN BEING, it is the best for the man, for the woman. The stable family is the best environment for a child to grow up and healthily develop.

There is a law that dominates all animal biology: the larger or the smaller stability of the sexes union is determined by the length of the need of the offspring's development. The more complex beings demand a paternal protection much longer than the less complex beings. This way, a baby elephant remains a baby much longer than a baby fish.

The human being is the most developed among all beings, and beyond taking around 18 years to become an adult, it is the only species that needs education; the other animals live solely by instinct. For the young human to achieve all the possibilities of the human culture, that is so varied and elaborate, they have to be protected by responsible people during all those long years of formation.

These people are his father and mother, who together, in a stable environment, must care that their children grow, mature and become responsible adults. There is no better institution than the marriage to take care of the human needs and that is the reason that it has to be lasting. This is a very serious matter. We are dealing with the future of our society, the happiness of our children. Divorce does not solve anything, otherwise, it creates problems even bigger, for the couple and for the children.

But where does this “divorce culture” begin? It is in the crazy idea that to be happy, one needs to think FIRST on their PERSONAL REALIZATION. Selfishness reigns and where there is selfishness, love can't resist. The human being was created to bind, to surrender himself to the other and can only be happy in so far as each makes the other happy. There is no happiness alone. What personal happiness there really is to be is in so far as the people we love are happy. And we have the big responsibllity for the happiness of the ones we love!

Selfishness leads to immaturity: when I think only in myself, I stay childish, as that child that wants everything for herself, who thinks she is the center of the universe. We must overcome this phase. We need to see that we live in society, that there isn't what is good only for me, I need to see what is good for everyone. We need to teach our children when they are small that we need to think about each other, for the good of the family. When siblings are disputing, the question you should ask each one is: “What is the most generous choice you can do right now?”

To be happy, we need to overcome selfishness, that interior voice that tells me I should first search for what is better for me, what gives me pleasure. To love and to be happy demands a great deal of sacrifice, the sacrifice to put your will aside, to do what gives most pleasure to the other. This is love's logic: I sacrifice myself for you and you sacrifice yourself for me, this way we build together our happiness.

We need to say NO to the divorce culture. Divorce should never be an option. Unfortunately, there are cases where there is no other alternative but separation, such as when there is violence, drug or alcohol abuse, extreme cases where the physical well being of the spouse and the children are threatened if they stay living together. And there are also cases where, even if one of the spouses tries very hard, the other simply abandons him or her.

We should have a lot of compassion for all families who are wounded by divorce and help them to unite their suffering to Jesus' Cross so they can continue living in a way that pleases God. If reconciliation is impossible or not recommended, the spouse should keep on praying unceasingly for the other, asking God's grace to reach the other's heart, because for God, nothing is impossible. It's also advisable to look for counsel by the Ecclesiastical Court, because there is the possibility that the marriage never have really happened, being the case of declaration of invalidity.