DIVORCE IN ITALY

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31277, 25 January 1967, Page 13

DIVORCE IN ITALY

Pope Attacks Bill (N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) VATICAN CITY, Jan. 24. Pope Paul, in his first audience yesterday since recovering from influenza, attacked divorce as “a sign of pernicious moral decadence.” Intervening in a controversy in Italy over a private deputy’s bill which would introduce divorce, he said he was confident Italians would understand what was “the right choice to make and to defend.”

The 69-year-old Pontiff was receiving in annual audience the members of the Holy Roman Rota, the Holy See’s main court of law, which deals with annulments in matrimonial cases. “We do not wish to keep silent about the sad impression we have always had of the desire of those people who aspire to introduce divorce in the legislation and customs of nations, which have the good fortune to be without it,” Pope Paul said. The Lateran Pacts between Italy and the Holy See—which Roman Catholics argue would be violated by the introduction of divorce in Italy —were not a yoke inflicted on the Italian people, but an honour for them, he maintained. The Pontiff said he felt surprise and displeasure that last week the Italian Chamber of Deputies’ constitutional commission had ruled constitutional a private Socialist member’s bill which would Introduce divorce in Italy.