“Yes” Is “No,” and “No” Is “Yes” – Folha de S. Paulo, May 19, 1974

 

by Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira

 

The world watched in amazement as divorce won the referendum in Italy a few days ago. How can we explain that such a Catholic people approved the Fortuna-Baslini law, which destroyed the indissolubility of the marriage bond in Italy?

Obviously, the answer cannot lie in the decline in the number of Catholics on the peninsula. Even if there has been some decline, it cannot account for the surplus of pro-divorce votes over anti-divorce votes. The essential cause of this fact must be something else. The majority of Italians, when called upon to express their opinion, did so contrary to their Catholic conscience. And here lies the problem: why did they act in such an aberrant manner?

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First of all, I find it important to emphasize one factor in this disaster: confusion.

I have in my hands a copy of Milan’s well-known Corriere della Sera (March 4, 1974), which features a photograph of the ballot used in the plebiscite. It appears to have been designed to mislead a large part of the population.

The ballot is divided into two parts. One reads “YES” and the other “NO.” Depending on their preference, voters must mark with a cross the field that reads “YES” or the one that reads “NO.” It couldn’t be clearer, could it?

However, it couldn’t be more confusing. According to the law governing the referendum, those opposed to divorce should mark “YES,” while those in favor should mark “NO.”

Isn’t that mind-boggling?

Why such an extravagant provision on the referendum ballot? The question posed to voters was not: “Do you want divorce approved, or not?” Instead, it was: “Do you approve the repeal of Law No. 898, dated December 1, 1970, on the discipline of cases of marriage dissolution?” Anyone who wanted to say YES to divorce should have answered that they did NOT want the law abolished. Anyone who wanted to say NO to divorce should have answered YES, that they wanted the law abolished.

How can we be surprised when such a confusing consultation has produced a paradoxical result?

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Furthermore, we live in an age of widespread religious ignorance. To mobilize the entire Catholic electorate against divorce, advocates of indissolubility would have had to give their campaign a distinctly religious tone. Drawing on extensive quotations from papal texts, they should have said that God’s Law forbids divorce, which violates natural law and undermines the sacramental character of Christian marriage.

On the contrary, anti-divorce advocates based their arguments primarily on sociological grounds, which were undoubtedly conclusive yet complex, and therefore difficult for the public to assess. In religious matters, they limited themselves to citing the Lateran Treaty. Why invoke a treaty, however respectable, when you could invoke the Law of God? The reader can calculate how weak and ineffective the anti-divorce campaign was. Obvious effects of progressive irenicism.

* * *

In a speech on the 15th of this month, H.H. Pope Paul VI stated that he felt “astonishment and pain” upon realizing that the resounding defeat was also due to the thesis of indissolubility, which “lacked the solidarity of many members of the ecclesiastical community.”

Here is the worst part. This is yet another terrible fruit of progressivism, festering unpunished, or nearly so, in Catholic circles. Yesterday, it handed Chile over to communism, and today it strikes at the institution of the family in Italy. But what can be said about this?