How the plain man (or woman) sees it

Andrée Seu Peterson, "Fast-tracking annulments" (World, September 9, 2015):

Having absolved women for terminating unwanted pregnancies, Pope Francis yesterday announced the widening of absolution for couples terminating unwanted marriages. The instrument of this convenience, called an “annulment,” is the most bizarre invention since the Middle Ages practice of selling of indulgences. Annulment means, in a word, that the marriage never happened.

Why get a divorce when you can get an annulment? Why live with the shame of a failed union when for $800 you can buy a clean scorecard showing a union that never existed? Tuesday’s motu proprio papal initiative (much like an Obama executive order) waves all but small administrative fees while streamlining and expediting the burdensome procedure that previously required two tribunals to cosign.

All this reminds me of a movie I saw long ago about gypsies. In one scene, an attractive gypsy woman undergoes her annual rite to become a virgin de nouveau. She has been promiscuous all year but the ceremony purifies her, and afterward her relatives exclaim in joy, “Maria is a virgin again! Life is good!”

Before the pope announced his new annulment rules yesterday, a significant percentage of people who would begin the process didn’t follow through with it. This is partly because of the onerous expense and partly because of the lengthy questionnaire requiring one to find fault with one’s spouse in order to prove the marriage was flawed from the start. But, of course, all this folderol will be remedied by Tuesday’s papal decree. Especially the reduction of the questionnaire is all to the good, I’d say. After all, the act of rehashing your spouse’s faults on paper sounds to me like adding the sin of slander to the sin of splitting. 

Now, granted, this article is by a Protestant and full of a multitude of misunderstandings.  But honestly ask yourself: is it any wonder?  Has anything said and done by our church leaders in recent years helped to made it easier, for example, for those of us who are converts to explain all this to our evangelical brethren?  

[Hat tip to JM]

The New Annulment Norms and the American Experience

Fr. Mark A. Pilon, "The New Annulment Norms and the American Experience" (The Catholic Thing, September 16, 2015), writes:

Today, the United States is the abortion capital of the world, and the American Church is the annulment capital. The Church can say all she wants that an annulment is not a divorce, which is obviously true in terms of Catholic doctrine, but the general population, including a huge percentage of Catholics, has simply come to see the annulment process as Catholic divorce. An Anglican friend of mine used to chide me in the 1970s, “we Anglicans call it divorce and you Catholics call it annulment, but in the end it amounts to the same thing in the way it affects people’s lives.”

... Pope Francis surely has the best intentions, but he has quite clearly rejected the careful and prudential decision made by his predecessor, who gave us the 1983 Code. And it seems he thinks that the experimental American norms were just fine and should be extended to the whole Catholic world. But is he ready for the same results that followed in the United States? If he really thinks that fast tracking the annulment process is simply going to help the poor and won’t result in undermining the permanency of marriage in general, all I can say is I hope he’s right. But the experience of the American Church is not reassuring.

I have friends asking "At what point does all of this stretch the bounds of credibility to the snapping point?" I'm not sure how to answer that question for them. Any ideas?

[Hat tip to JM]

Douthat: "The Pope's Marriage Endgame"

New York Times op-ed columnist, Ross Douthat writes (September 12, 2015):

It’s clear that this was all intentional: That Francis wanted a big internal argument over marriage and communion, that he deliberately started this civil war.

The question that remains unanswered, though, is how the pope intends to finish it.

... Now, though, the pope has actually made a major move on marriage. He’s changing canon law governing annulments, making it much easier for divorced Catholics to have their first marriage declared invalid, null and void.

The changes do not merely streamline the existing annulment process, as many expected, by removing a mandatory review of each decision. They promise a fast-track option, to be implemented at the discretion of local bishops ....

This is a major liberalization of the church’s rules, probably the most significant of Francis’ pontificate to date....

What the new rules do not do, however, is explicitly change the church’s teaching on the indissolubility of marriage, in the way that admitting the remarried to communion absent an annulment would [so they do change the teaching, just not in quite the same way an explicit denial would? Then who even needs explicit doctrine when implicit reversal suggests we think it impractical?]. This may seem like theological hair-splitting [actually, very much so], but from the point of view of Catholic unity it’s crucial. [Then perhaps the obsession with Unity ... needs a bit of rethinking. What good is unity over faux-agreement to dead letters of the law? And if Unity requires identification with an always changing public face and wildly varied agendas, how is that any different from a cult?] [emphasis and comments in red from Guy Noir]

Fast-tracking annulments "does not formally reverse the church’s teaching about the nature of marriage and communion," as Douthat says; but as he also admits, it "weakens the credibility of Catholic doctrine, in both implication and effect." How can that be good? How can that be merciful?

From a glut if immigrants to a glut of annulments?

"Catholic Divorce - Head of Vatican Commission Admits in Official Paper: Surge in Number of "Annulments" Intended" (RC, September 14, 2015).

Would it be fair to discern an analogy in the trajectory from "No Salvation Outside the Church" to "Dare We Hope That All Men Be Saved?" -- or would that be unfair? Why, or why not?

On the eve of the Synod ...

The following video was released by the Polish publication Polonia Christiana called "Crisis in the Church" containing statements by numerous concerned clerics and theologians:

• "Impossible to excuse or explain away: How the heterodoxy of the Instrumentum Laboris for the Synod of 2015 has been exposed" (Rorate Caeli, September 11, 2015)
• Edward Pentin, "Pope Attacked Over Motu Proprio: Cardinak Kasper Reasserts His Proposal" (National Catholic Register, September 11, 2015) [courtesy of Janet Smith]
• "Texts of the Abstracts from the Steubenville Symposium on Marriage and the Family" (Rorate Caeli, September 12, 2015)
• "Event: Roman Symposium on Adam and Eve as the basis for Holy Matrimony - Rome, September 26" (Rorate Caeli, September 12, 2015).
• "The Vortex—Cdl. Burke and the Synod" (Church Militant, September 11, 2015).
• "Synod primer: Explosive video featuring three prelates speaking on adultery, homosexuality in blunt terms" (Rorate Caeli, September 9, 2015).
• "Dr. Kwasniewski’s Lecture at Steubenville: 'The Old Mass and the New Evangelization: Beyond the Long Winter of Rationalism'” (Rorate Caeli, September 11, 2015).

And then there is this closing portion of the panel discussion following Cardinal Burke's speech at Franciscan University on September 8, 2015 (for Cardinal Burke's speech, simply scroll back to the 17:30 time signature):

Why the brouhaha over streamlined annulments?

Here are two contrasting views:

• Fr. Dwight Longenecker, "Faster Annulments: Building a Raft Out of the Wreckage" (Patheos, September 8, 2015):

  Some people complain that there are too many annulments, and no doubt there are some abuses. Some annulments are given out lightly and I expect with the new rules even more annulments will be doled out too quickly and automatically. However, that need not be the case [huh? did I miss something?], and the more efficient rules will mean that the obvious cases for annulment can be dealt with more quickly and this will help all those involved in the pastoral care of those in broken marriages.
  
  Is it necessarily a terrible thing that there will be more annulments?
  
  I will never forget what one pastor said when discussing this matter: “Of course there are more annulments than ever before. That’s because there are more invalid marriages than ever before.”
  
  I’m sure nobody would dispute the fact that marriage and weddings in our mixed up society are a total mess. [Emphasis added by Guy Noir]

  (Our correspondent, Guy Noir, remarks: "[I]f marriage is so difficult a concept to grab hold of, so rarely now actually realized, maybe the communion ban on divorced people should not be an issue at all -- ban most everybody! Buying into the new meme, it could convincingly be suggested but that Church invite to communion only bonafide singles and those they believe were actually and validly married in the first place. Because they seem to think this latter group is a pretty small one, such a practice would be far sounder and much safer, since under a Franciscan diagnosis society has produced within the Church a morally-addled mess. Running with the hospital analogy, the majority need saving before feeding, confession before Mass. And, I guess, somewhere in there, marriage. Yes, I agree, let's make things as complicated as we possibly can!")
  
  
• Roberto de Mattei, "A Would Inflicted on Christian Marriage" (Rorate Caeli, September 11, 2015):

  ... The indissolubility of marriage is a Divine and unmodifiable law of Jesus Christ. The Church cannot “annul” a marriage in the sense of dissolving it. She can, through a declaration of nullity, verify its inexistence, due to the lack of those requisites which assure its validity. Which means that in the canonical process, the Church’s priority is not the interests of the spouses to obtain the declaration of nullity, but the validity of the marriage bond itself [my ephasis].
  
  ... In Pope Francis’ Motu Proprio this view has been overturned. The interest of the spouses has primacy over that of marriage. It is the document itself that affirms this, by summarizing the fundamental criteria of the reform in these points: the abolition of the double-sentence in conformity, substituted by only one sentence in favor of the enforceability of the annulment; the attribution of monocratic power to the bishop, qualified as sole judge; the introduction of an expedite process [brevior], de facto uncontrollable, with the substantial downsizing of the role of the Roman Rota.
  
  ... Favor matrimonii is substituted for favor nullitatis, which comes to be the primary element of the law, while indissolubility is reduced to an impracticable “ideal”. The theoretical affirmation of indissolubility of marriage, is accompanied in practice with the right to a declaration of nullity for every failed marital bond. It will be enough, in conscience, to deem one’s own marriage invalid, in order to have it recognized as null by the Church. It is the same principle with which some theologians consider a marriage “dead”, where according to both, or one of the spouses, “love has died”. [emphasis from Rorate Caeli]

For anyone interested in delving deeper, I recommend, from Canonist Ed Peters' blog, In the Light of the Law:

• "A first look at Mitis Iudex" (September 8, 2015)
• "A second look at Mitis, especially at the new fast-track annulment process" (September 8, 2015)
• "The pope’s niece might be on to something" (September 9, 2015)
• "A linguistic concern occasioned by an important debate over synodal proposals," September 12, 2015.

"You went full Kasper"?

Dale Price, "The Clericalist Mindset" (Dyspeptic Mutterings, May 8, 2014):

My favorite Cardinal has it. And he just revealed it today in imitation of the Hagan Lio style of his boss:

"That’s a real problem. I’ve spoken to the pope himself about this, and he said he believes that 50 percent of marriages are not valid. Marriage is a sacrament. A sacrament presupposes faith."

... nowhere in Kasper's meanderings is there a hint of clerical negligence in the marriage crisis. If you genuinely believe half of marriages are invalid, that should prompt serious soul-searching on your part, a mea culpa and admission of gruesome failure. But, nope. Vague waving at "bureaucratic" presentations, and that's it.

Again, how convenient.

No. Half of marriages being null also suggests that this is not exactly the golden age of the church we're told it is, nor is all remotely well. A 50% failure rate is only spectacular in the batting box. And a true church of mercy shouldn't be so sanguine with souls.

Related: Augustinus, "Cardinal Kasper in NYC: The Ghost of Vatican II goes on a rampage," (Rorate Caeli, May 7, 2014).

[Hat tip to JM]

Are annulments simply "Catholic divorce"? -- A canon lawyer responds

Some months ago, in one of our combox discussions, the question posed in the title of this post was raised in a fairly heated discussion between several readers. The suggestion was made that a post could be devoted to the subject of how annulments are understood in the Catholic Church. With this in mind, I asked a colleague of mine who is a noted canon lawyer and author of Annulments And The Catholic Church: Straight Answers To Tough Questions, whether he had any online articles that address the issue, which I could post for discussion in this venue. He did. Hence, with his permission, I offer you the following article which appeared in its original version in Catholic Family (May-June 1998) and is also available online at CanonLaw.info:

Catechetical Issues Related to Annulments

by Dr. Edward N. Peters
Catechists who prepare adults for entrance into the Church need a good understanding of annulments (technically: “declarations of matrimonial nullity”) for at least two reasons. First, virtually all adults seeking to enter the Church have heard of annulments, but most of them labor under one or more serious misperceptions about the process and its purposes. In particular, because of the great increase in the number of annulments being declared by tribunals, questions might be raised about the Church’s commitment to permanent marriage. It is important, therefore, to correct any misunderstandings about annulments before they result in confusion about Catholic teaching on sacramental marriage.

Second, many adults considering conversion to the Catholic Faith are already divorced and remarried outside the Church. Among Catholics, such status, although it no longer results in their excommunication, is considered objectively gravely sinful and prevents their participation in the Eucharist. Similarly, it would be self-defeating to welcome converts into the Church, only to then immediately tell them that, because they are remarried after a civil divorce, they cannot take Communion in the Church they just entered. Thus the matrimonial status of divorced-and-remarried candidates must be assessed before their entering the Church.

In this article we will look at some of the more common issues encountered by catechists regarding annulments. Keeping in mind that most adults seeking to enter full communion with the Church are already validly baptized, we will focus on questions related to marriage cases of the baptized. Even so, however, we must still limit this discussion to those marriage cases which are not complicated by unusual factors such as non-consummation of the marriage or presumed death of a spouse.

What is an Annulment?

The most common misperception among potential converts regarding annulments is that a declaration of matrimonial nullity is simply a Catholic divorce. Obviously, and without denying certain similarities which do exist between divorce and annulments, catechists need to draw clearly the crucial differences between the two. Briefly, a divorce, at least as far as civil law is concerned, ends a marriage which was in existence. In contrast, an annulment declares that what appeared to be a marriage was, from a ecclesiastical point of view, never a marriage in the first place.

The Catholic Church, relying on the teachings of Christ, holds that the marriages of the baptized last until death (Canon 1056). The Church, therefore, unlike the state, does not regard the existence of a civil divorce as sufficient to allow a divorced person to marry again during the lifetime of the first spouse. In order to enter what can be recognized by the Church as a marriage, a divorced person must demonstrate the invalidity of the earlier marriage. The process whereby the possible invalidity of the earlier marriage is examined is the annulment process. Annulment cases can only be heard by ecclesiastical authorities, usually a diocesan tribunal, and are conducted in accord with Church law (Canon 1671).

Broadly speaking, every annulment case comes down to three (or six, if you prefer) questions (Canon 1057): did each of the parties have what canon law considers to be capacity for marriage at the time of the wedding?; did each of the parties express consent to marriage as the Church proclaims it?; and finally, did each of the parties observe whatever level of form might have been required for marriage at the time? — although in non-Catholic weddings, this requirement is usually very easily satisfied and hence rarely serves as a basis for nullity.

Now, canon law presumes that both parties had capacity for marriage at the time of the wedding and it presumes that both parties expressed consent to true marriage (Canons 1058, 1060, & 1101). But, if it can be proven that either or both parties lacked capacity for marriage or that either or both parties did not consent to marriage as the Church teaches it, then such a marriage can be declared ecclesiastically null.

Sometimes a divorced person can demonstrate that the failed marriage was also null by ecclesiastical standards; sometimes not. The mere fact, however, that there has been a sharp rise in the number of broken marriages which have been declared canonically null does not mean that annulments can be obtained simply by doing the paperwork correctly. Each marriage nullity case is heard separately and on its own merits, and the number of rejected annulment petitions is undoubtedly higher than most people believe.

The Catechist’s Role

Catechists should try to make clear that annulments are regarded by the Church as exercises in justice, not charity. In other words, annulments are declared when, and only when, the parties meet the objective canonical requirements for nullity.

Annulments are not given out because tribunal judges feel sorry for certain people (even if such people are clearly sympathetic characters), nor are an annulment petitions rejected because tribunal officials suspect (even if accurately) bad-will on the part of one or both parties. Admittedly, most of the parties involved in annulment cases are pleased when nullity petitions are approved because it will make possible (for both parties) a marriage in the Church. But the fact that most people want their nullity petitions approved does not mean that approval of the petition is the correct result. The tribunal process has not necessarily failed when an annulment petition is denied; the process has not succeeded just because a nullity petition is approved. Annulments are declared when the requirements of canon law are met. They are declined when the requirements of canon law are not met.

Converts, Marriage, and Annulments

It is not unusual for potential converts to the Faith, upon learning that their marriage history might impede their entrance into the Catholic Church, to wonder why the Church is even interested in their earlier marriage(s) in the first place. They might feel that they are unfairly being held to standards that did not apply to them at earlier times in their lives. A couple of observations are in order here.

On the one hand, for example, the requirements of canonical form (what Catholics refer to as “getting married in the Church” according to Canon 1108) are not applied to Protestants. While the violation of canonical form can (and, some 15,000 times a year, does) result in the nullity of the marriages of Catholics, Protestants need not comply with Catholic laws on canonical form and in that regard they are not being held to that Catholic standard for marriage. Of course, because they are not bound by canonical form, Protestants cannot use the fact that they were married, say, in front of a civil magistrate, as proof of the invalidity of their marriage.

On the other hand, some aspects of canon law on marriage are applied to Protestants. To take an obvious example, biological brothers and sisters are canonically incapable of marrying each other, regardless of their religious affiliation (Canon 1091). Such attempts at marriage would be invalid under canon law for Catholics and Protestants alike. Notice, however, that what is at issue in a case like this is not simply a matter of canon law, but one of Divine Law, to which the Church believes all baptized persons are bound. Indeed, when looked at carefully, nearly all of the “Catholic” marriage requirements which are applied to Protestants will be seen to be based on natural or Divine Law.

There are, nevertheless, some significant areas in which Catholic teaching on marriage is applied to Protestants, despite the interdenominational differences which exist on certain points. Let us look at just one, namely, intentions regarding permanence in marriage.

All major Protestant denominations discourage divorce, some of them quite strongly. But none of them currently takes the position of the Catholic magisterium on divorce, to wit, that remarriage is impossible during the lifetime of one’s former spouse. Now, prescinding from whether our cradle Catholics have been adequately educated on this point, it is an accepted part of canonical jurisprudence that anyone who deliberately excludes the intention of remaining in a lifelong marriage attempts marriage invalidly. Therefore, it is possible that the marriage of a Protestant which has ended in divorce can also be declared canonically null based on the fact that the Protestant rejected what the Catholic Church considers to be a true marriage. How? By it being proved that at the time of the wedding the Protestant, quite understandably perhaps, rejected a major facet of the Church’s teaching on marriage (Canons 1056 & 1101). Obviously, great care is taken in hearing nullity cases on these or similar grounds and, as noted above, canon law presumes that all persons consenting to marriage consent to marriage as the Church understands and proclaims it. But such presumptions can be, and sometimes are, overturned in particular cases, resulting in a declaration of matrimonial nullity.

As most catechists know, many people seeking admission to the Church were first attracted to the Church by the strong stand she has taken in defense of innocent human life, her opposition to divorce, and her advocacy of marriage and family life values. I hope the above observations will help catechists allay the fears of some that, through her practice of annulments, the Church is wavering in her proclamation of “marriage until death do us part.” At the same time, however, catechists should feel confident in guiding to the proper ecclesiastical offices those candidates for conversion who are in irregular unions, knowing that the opportunity to have an accurate canonical determination of their true matrimonial status is available. +++

Of related interest:

• Edward N. Peters, Annulments And The Catholic Church: Straight Answers To Tough Questions (West Chester, PA: Ascension Press, 2004), a highly regarded treatment of the topic in an accessible question-and-answer format.
  
• Edward N. Peters, Excommunication and the Catholic Church (West Chester, PA: Ascension Press, 2006)

[Hat tip to Dr. Peters for permission to use his article]

When money no longer talks

Vatican reverses annulment of Joseph Kennedy's first marriage years later" (Candada.com, June 21, 1007):

BOSTON (AP) - The Vatican reversed the annulment of former representative Joseph Kennedy II's first marriage, a union that had lasted 12 years and produced two sons.

Sheila Rauch on Wednesday confirmed a report on Time magazine's website that her appeal of the annulment to Rome has succeeded. "I'm very grateful that the marriage was validated," she told The Associated Press.

Of related interest:

• "A Kennedy Scorned" (Man with Black Hat, June 20, 2007)
• "Abandoned Wives look to Vatican for Help" (Catholic Online, June 20, 2007).

[Photo credit: hat tip to David L. Alexander]

'Mummy's boys' unfit to stay wed, says Rome

A London Telegraph article by Nick Pisa carries the headline, 'Mummy's boys' unfit to stay wed, says Rome (Telegraph.co.uk, January 29, 2007).

Judges on the Roman Rota, the top Catholic tribunal in the Vatican, agreed for an undisclosed number of marriages to be annulled on such grounds, according to a review of the judicial year.

They ruled that the "overbearing influence of a mother or father meant that the psychological autonomy needed for marriage was lacking".

On the other hand, the article also reported that Pope Benedict XVI appealed to judges on the panel not to grant annulments freely and said: "Marriage is not a legal structure that human desire can manipulate at its will." Furthermore, the statistics from the last year are of note:

According to the statistics released for 2005, the judges approved just 67 marriage annulments after looking at 1,637 cases. Appeals for marriage annulments were increasing and that, although they arrived from 27 countries, the largest number, 127, came from Italy.