Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Santo Domingo (Agenzia Fides) – The Dominican Bishops' Conference (CED), through its Commission on Legal Affairs, has presented the Justice Commission of the House of Representatives with a copy of its observations on the draft bill on religious associations. In an act which took place on November 17 in the headquarters of National Congress, the CED was represented by its Vice-President, Bishop Nicanor Peña of La Altagracia, and by the Secretary General Adjunct of the CED, Fr. Carmelo Santana Jerez. The two were also accompanied by the Bishops' Commission on Legal Affairs: Bishop Juan Antonio Flores Santana, its President, and Bishop Ramón Benito Ángeles Fernández, its Secretary.
The Bishops presented the President of the Justice Commission with a document in which they manifest several of the observations made by the Catholic Church on the draft bill regarding religious associations. According to the Bishops, “the draft bill does not go against the nation's Constitution, however, its approval would imply a series of risks, of various kinds, for the people of the Dominican Republic.”
Among these risks, the Bishops indicate, first of all: “the possibility of celebrating marriages presided by ministers without sufficient preparation and experience, which would become a serious problem without the presences of a legal structure on which to rest such affairs, such as in the case of matrimonial law which is almost non-existent among religious denominations.” All this would be a grace difficulty for the country, in “the registration and control of religious marriages and the processes that would be created in the thousands of churches and places of worship that now exist and that will come to exist in the future of our country.”
Another problem that troubles the Bishops is the fact that, “the law opens the doors to persons who invent a church/religion simply as a means for personal economic gain.” Thus, the Bishops call for “humility and strength, removed from the greed that leads people to try to find personal advantages in various manners,” and ask the political and legislative leaders of the country to discern “with equality and justice...placing the interests of the general public over and above those of private sectors.” They conclude by reminding all that “we mist fight to maintain the economic, social, and moral welfare of the country, in moments when it is threatened from within and from outside its borders.” (RG) (Agenzia Fides 18/11/2008)
