But now to the problem at hand.
For the most part, the local church leadership, if it does anything, offers only "support" for the soon to be married, and NOTHING, ZERO, NADA for couples after they are married - which of course is when the problems start (save for the lay efforts already mentioned).
But I'll discuss that another day. Meanwhile, want to move on to something closer to the real problem.
In both articles, both "the Church" and divorce attorney extraordinaire, William Pesch, allude to the possibility that maybe the numbers aren't as bad as they appear to be because it is possible that many divorces are due to Guam's "get your divorce in 7 days while you vacation in paradise" law. (Just google it.)
Note: Actually, the collapse of marriage and family on Guam under Apuron is wholly evidenced in the outrageous child abuse statistics -which are a reliable measure of family fragmentation, and which are hardly attributable to 7 day divorce tourism.
The real issue is WHO THE HELL MADE GUAM A DIVORCE DESTINATION IN THE FIRST PLACE?
Hmmmm. Well that would be Guam lawmakers, wouldn't it? And guess what? The majority of Guam lawmakers are products of our Catholic schools, aren't they? In any event, there does not appear to be any record of any representation by "the Church" to oppose the laws which turned Guam into a divorce mecca, nor to support legislation which would repair Guam's scandalous status.
Some history
Some history
Actually the 7 day requirement is an improvement from the laughable law which preceded it. In 1988, our legislature passed a bill permitting all residency requirements for divorce to be waived (or at least "not proved"), which is how the term "mail order divorce" came to be.
The language of the bill is hilarious. It first requires a 90 days residency period and then proceeds to waive it under very liberal circumstances. But even more hilarious is that the bill/law permitting Guam to become the divorce capital of the world was smushed into a bill dealing with everything from computers for UOG to a sewer line in Agat:
So something so central to societal flourishing as marriage and the family was thrown into a pile of legislation dealing with sewage and buses, by mostly Catholic school educated lawmakers, and left to die there by "the Church" which says "keeping couples together" is a priority. SMH!
In 2005, former Senator Bob Klitzkie and now-Speaker B.J. Cruz, collaborated on a bill to restore the 90 days residency requirement. The legislation was heavily opposed by most of the legal community (for obviou$$$$ reasons), but NOWHERE was "the Church" to be found in support of restoring at least some semblance of sanity to our laws in order to remove the divorce mecca moniker from perhaps the most Catholic place in the world. (Committee Report here.)
Still, despite the opposition from the legal community and silence from the Catholic Church, the bill looked like it might pass. Well it did pass, but not till after a Buddhist senator and future speaker succeeded in amending the 90 days to 7, under the banner of "good for the economy!"
In 1998, and between the two aforementioned bills, there was another bill which became law, which legalized the death of marriage under the title: No-Fault Divorce. By embracing this law, Guam essentially said, marriage as a commitment, as a contract, as an essential societal unit...is no more.
For what is a contract if one needs no reason to get out of it, and often times is even rewarded (by the courts) for doing so? What is so "essential" about a "societal unit" if with a few hundred bucks and a couple of signatures, said "societal unit" can be rendered non-essential?
The bill was signed into law in 1998. And for a few years, divorces even declined a bit. But then the cancerous seed metastasized and Guam's divorce rate exploded:
And not a word when this bill was up for public hearing from "the Church" which Fr. Jeff tells us has as its priority: "keeping couples together." But let GAMBLING come up, and Apuron, Jeff et al. have historically turned our Masses into campaign rallies and our church buildings into billboards!
One last thing.
The KUAM news item notes that both "the Church" and divorce attorney extraordinaire, William Pesch, attempt to downplay the numbers as being mostly the result of Guam's 7 day divorce law:
"Both the Church and Attorney William Pesch suspect Guam's numbers aren't as high as data suggests. This because Guam law allows non-residents to divorce on Guam. Pesch specializes in seven-day divorces - and handles up to 100 per year. "
However, in his PDN column of Sep 21, 2015, Pesch (no surprise) said the opposite:
Top 7 places to get a quickie divorce
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