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Italy’s Catholics support divorce communion

It is a topic which has bitterly divided Church leaders reviewing family teachings at the Vatican, but a new poll published on Tuesday showed practising Catholics in Italy strongly support communion for remarried divorced people.

Published: 6 October 2015 11:42 CEST
Italy's Catholics support divorce communion
Eighty-four percent of practising Catholics in Italy are in favour of allowing remarried divorced people to receive communion. Photo: Alwyn Ladell

As a global council on the Church's approach to the family entered its second day, the poll published in the Corriere della Sera daily also showed the majority of Italians were in favour of gay marriage or civil unions.

The results of the Ispos survey may boost the liberal camp, which is battling conservatives to bring the Roman Catholic Church's approach to the family into line with the realities of modern society.

According to the poll, 84 percent of practising Catholics are in favour of allowing remarried divorced people to receive communion – a move currently banned by the Church because it holds their first marriage to be indissoluble.

In terms of same-sex partners, 37 percent of Italians are in favour of gay marriage while another 37 percent oppose gay marriage but support civil unions.

Among practising Catholics, 25 percent said they favour gay marriage while 37 percent would like to see civil unions.

The Ipsos survey was carried out between September 29 and 30 on a sample of 998 people.

Italy is the last big Western country yet to have legalised any form of union between same-sex couples.

While Prime Minister Matteo Renzi and his centre-left government have pledged to bring in civil unions, the bill is languishing in the upper house of parliament, blocked by a series of challenges and proposed amendments.

SEX

France taken to European Court over divorce ruling that woman had ‘marital duty’ to have sex with husband

A case has been brought against France at the European Court of Human Rights by a woman who lost a divorce case after judges ruled against her because she refused to have sex with her husband.

Published: 19 March 2021 16:40 CET
France taken to European Court over divorce ruling that woman had 'marital duty' to have sex with husband
Photo: Frederick Florin/AFP

The woman, who has not been named, has brought the case with the backing of two French feminist groups, arguing that the French court ruling contravened human rights legislation by “interference in private life” and “violation of physical integrity”.

It comes after a ruling in the Appeals Court in Versailles which pronounced a fault divorce in 2019 because of her refusal to have sex with her husband.

READ ALSO The divorce laws in France that foreigners need to be aware of

The court ruled that the facts of the case “established by the admission of the wife, constitute a serious and renewed violation of the duties and obligations of marriage making intolerable the maintenance of a shared life”.

Feminist groups Fondation des femmes (Women’s Foundation) and Collectif féministe contre le viol (Feminist Collective against Rape) have backed her appeal, deploring the fact that French justice “continues to impose the marital duty” and “thus denying the right of women to consent or not to sexual relations”.

“Marriage is not and should not be a sexual servitude,” the joint statement says, pointing out that in 47 percent of the 94,000 recorded rapes and attempted rapes per year, the aggressor is the spouse or ex-spouse of the victim.

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