The bishop of Elphin, Dr Christopher Jones has said that the legalisation of divorce in Ireland has caused marriage breakdown to increase five-fold. Speaking at a celebration in Boyle for people celebrating jubilees of their weddings, Dr Jones said that solutions to problems of delinquency, drugs and crime would not be found in having extra police or prison places.
Instead, he claimed, the “battle for a healthy, happy society will be won or lost in marriage and family life. Once the State makes something legal, people automatically think it is okay for them; that is why the introduction of divorce has such a negative effect on our understanding of marriage,” Dr Jones said.
“People think that if the State sees nothing wrong then it is morally all right and that is how laws can change the perceptions of people.”
He said he was not making judgements on individuals and accepted that some marriages were in difficulty from the beginning and that there were single parents who made “heroic efforts to prepare their children for life.”
Apart from rising marriage breakdown rates in the wake of the introduction of divorce, Bishop Jones said the number of people co-habiting had risen by 400%, while the number of single parent families had risen by 80%.
In an appeal to young people, he called on them to “rediscover that marriage is the only way forward for the happiness of parents, children and society. By living with each other outside of marriage you may be meeting your own physical and emotional needs but you are refusing to formalise your relationship,” he told them.
“You are not prepared to make the commitment for life that married love demands and you are rejecting the direction of both church and state to create the stable and secure environment into which children are born and prepared in love for life.”
Furthermore, Dr Jones went on, research proved that those who cohabitate have a higher risk of breaking up than married people.
“Let us pray that young people will rediscover the importance of the family founded on marriage for the health and happiness of parents, children and ultimately of society itself.”
SIC: CIN