SANTIAGO, Chile — Many politicians who are friends of Cardinal Francisco Javier Errázuriz warned him. He’s the archbishop of Santiago and until recently was president of the Chilean bishops’ conference. They told him the Church’s fierce fight against a law legalizing divorce in Chile was “useless” and was eroding the bishops’ prestige, which could be saved for other battles.

These advisors cited the hard facts: Until late last year, Chile was the only country in the Americas where divorce was illegal and one of the last three in the world, together with Malta and the Philippines.

Besides, polls showed that 70% of the 15 million Chileans (75% of whom are Catholic) were in favor of passing the law.

But for the Catholic Church, the battle was not useless at all — not only was it a necessary defense against the social damage of divorce, it has helped mobilize faithful Catholics to fight for their beliefs on other issues, such as abortion.

The campaign to legalize divorce started to gain strength in the early 1990s, after the end of Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship. The lower house of Congress finally approved a divorce bill in 1997, and after more than five years of political debate, in August 2003, the Senate voted 33-13 to end the ban on divorce.

In November, the new law was finally approved.

After the drive to legalize divorce began, the Chilean bishops’ conference launched a grass-roots campaign that included television, radio and newspaper ads explaining why divorce, although seen as a “logical solution,” was actually “a serious menace” to the stability of families and therefore to Chilean society.

“The bishops’ conference put together an impressive dossier, with significant amount of data, strongly supported by the negative example of European societies,” said Fernando Moreno, a Catholic philosophy professor at Gabriela Mistral University in Santiago.

“I think the material fairly showed to anyone who wanted to listen that opposing divorce was not only a ‘Catholic thing,’ but also a reasonable self-protection measure for any society,” he said.

Cardinal Javier Errázuriz, in a June 2003 pastoral letter entitled “Let No Man Tear Asunder,” said Chile should avoid “solutions that imply the destruction of the notion of the family.”

Said the cardinal, “Many countries have done precisely that, but their experience demonstrates that introducing divorce is not the right road.”

The bishops’ campaign awoke many Catholics and sparked the birth of several lay organizations that started to actively lobby politicians, especially members of the centrist Christian Democracy Party.

But, Moreno said, “Despite the Catholic revival, most of the cultural elite and the media ignored the bishops’ arguments and depicted the process as a battle between ‘ultra-conservatism’ — the Catholic Church — and ‘progressives.’”

After the lower house passed the law, the Church focused on mitigating the damage by proposing several amendments.

Jorge Morales Retamal, a legal adviser to the Chilean bishops, said that two main goals were to incorporate provisions recognizing religious weddings and inclusion of a clause allowing Christians to choose a “no-divorce” option.

María Antonieta Saá, the Socialist congresswoman who introduced the legislation in 1997, strongly opposed the Catholic amendments, arguing they would “obstruct a law that would allow couples to a civilized ending of their marriage.”

Members of the Senate accepted the motion to recognize Catholic weddings as legal under civil law, but struck down the request to allow couples marrying in the civil registry to choose a “no-divorce” option.

“If the Congress claims to respect freedom of religion, why shouldn’t we be able to marry for life if that is what we wish?” Morales asked. “This is one of the insurmountable contradictions of those who defend freedom for divorce but not for permanent marriage.”

Nevertheless, the Catholic lobby was able to win recognition of another category called “judicial separation,” which differs from divorce in that it would impede former spouses from marrying again.

Referring to the fact that several Catholic lawmakers voted against the provisions supported by the Church, the spokesman of the bishops’ conference, Bishop Gonzalo Duarte of Valparaiso, said that “it is not the first time in the history of Chile that public officials who declare themselves to be Catholic do not follow the teaching of the magisterium.”

A source at the Chilean bishops’ conference, who spoke on condition of anonymity, was more blunt, charging that some legislators had backed the law because of their personal desire to get divorced. “Many of the so-called ‘Catholic’ congressmen and senators are longing to legalize divorce for immediate personal desires,” he said. “How could you count on them to act according to objective morality if their personal morality is failing?”

When the law was enacted in mid-November, the influential daily El Mercurio hailed it as “the end of hypocrisy” and claimed that “attention in Chile will now focus on the courts in Chile and the expected rush of demands.”

But, in the first week after the law took effect, the “tens of thousands of couples” predicted shrunk to only 133 divorce suits filed nationwide.

Saá, who predicted an “avalanche” of 50,000 divorce files, blamed the low numbers to the conditions “imposed” by the Catholic Church and to the fact that the law wasn’t “more liberal.”

“We are not interested in the prestige of the Catholic Church; we are interested in the good of the family in Chile,” Bishop Duarte said when asked at a press conference why the Church in Chile fought so hard and long for a “lost battle.”

“We will keep fighting for the good and stability of marriage and family in Chile,” he added. “In that sense, nothing has changed for us.”

For many Catholic leaders, the Church’s willingness to fight against divorce has strengthened their resolve to resist other cultural changes. 

Martha Ellers, the Catholic mayor of the Santiago district of Lo Barnechea, recently won a political battle against the Chilean Ministry of Health’s plans to impose distribution of the “morning-after” contraceptive pill, which can act as an abortifacient. “The battle in favor of abortion is already here, but we have no plans to be defeated,” she said.

Added Ellers, “By not giving up easily and showing a tremendous capacity to fight against all odds (over divorce), Catholics have shown their readiness to fight all the coming cultural battles.”

Alejandro Bermúdez is based

in Lima, Peru.