MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Legislators vote to make divorce legal in Chile

Lawmakers voted to make divorce legal in Chile, one of the last countries where it had been banned, despite strong opposition from the Catholic Church and conservative groups.

The lower house of congress approved the bill 70 to 13, with six abstentions. It has already been passed by the senate, and President Ricardo Lagos was expected to quickly sign it into law.

The law is to go into effect within six months, allowing time for judges to study it and family courts to be set up to hear divorce cases.

"I feel we have paid a debt with Chile's society," socialist congressman Maria Antonieta Saa, a proponent of the law, said after the vote. "Now, he are giving Chileans the right to rebuild their lives."

Her right-wing colleague Marcelo Forni remained highly critical, saying divorce is bad news for Chilean families. "I think the Catholic Church did not do enough to prevent approval of this law. It should have clearly told Catholic legislators to oppose," Forni said.

The Catholic Church, which waged a strong campaign against the legislation -- including massive TV advertising -- reacted with resignation.

"It's hard to feel disappointed for something that we saw was coming," said Cardinal Francisco Errazuriz. "This is not what we expected for Chile. We wanted something that would strengthen the family, and this poses a huge challenge to our pastoral work."

About 87 percent of Chileans consider themselves Catholic.

Other countries that do not allow divorce include Malta and the Philippines.

Divorce has never been legal in Chile. Couples with failing marriages have had to resort to subterfuge to secure annulments.

The partners can declare before a judge that their union was illegal because, for example, one spouse gave a false address at the time of the marriage. The legal costs of an annulment average $670 -- steep in a country where the minimum wage is about $180 a month.

Couples will be allowed to divorce only after having separated for at least one year, if both spouses agree to divorce, and three years if only one does.

A divorce may be obtained without a waiting period if one member of the couple demonstrates serious violations of marital duties by its partner, such as violence, homosexuality, prostitution, drug addiction or a criminal conviction.

Couples will be required to undergo counseling for at least 60 days before a family court approves the divorce.

The new legislation also changes the marriage laws to recognize weddings done in churches -- currently the legal ceremony is carried out at the civil registrar's office by a government official. The couple must be married in one of 341 legally recognized churches and register within eight days.

The wording came after compromise between conservatives who wanted religious weddings recognized and socialists who pushed for a shorter waiting period -- the original proposal was a three-to-five-year wait.

"The text does not fully satisfy me, but it's a huge step ahead," said Saa, a socialist.

The divorce bill had dragged for nine years in Congress. The final text, called Civilian Marriage Law, replaced a law that had been in effect since 1884. Since then, at least at seven divorce bills died in Congress, the victims of strong conservative and Church opposition.

As legislators voted article by article, a small group of members of a conservative group called Family Action demonstrated peacefully in the stands deploying a sign reading "Divorce impoverishes women."

House Speaker Isabel Allende dismissed criticism of the law. "People do not divorce because there is divorce law, they divorce because their love has ended," Allende said.