Annulments vs Divorce

[mardukm]

Dear brother joe,

Have you ever been involved in an annulment? I have and I know the grounds on which annulments are granted and I know what the priest who advised me said. If any minor defect in intent or understanding, such as not truly understanding the nature of marriage, can be used to declare a marriage null then what other conclusion am I supposed to come to other than perfect intent and knowledge are required?

First of all, you have no grounds to say that NO ONE can ever be sure if they had entered a marriage with perfect intent and knowledge.

Secondly, I have always been of the opinion that the liberal and sexual revolution of the sixties resulted in a lot of invalid marriages (which would account for the many annulments in the U.S.). I’m sure there were a lot of marriages based on mere sexual pleasure, or immediate gratifications, etc. I don’t know what marriage classes were like in the sixties, or if there were even any (I wasn’t Catholic back then), but I think nowadays, given the requirement to attend marriage preparation classes in the Catholic Church. it would be very much harder to gain an annulment in the future. Not that I don’t think it will not occur. For instance, I know of a couple wherein the husband told the wife that he was a baptized Christian. Three years down in their marriage, it was discovered the husband lied and was not in fact a baptized Christian. Personally, I think that situation is grounds for annulment, especially if the wife entered into the marriage with the expectation that she was marrying a baptized Christian.

Blessings,
Marduk

 

[sidbrown]

Have you ever been involved in an annulment? I have and I know the grounds on which annulments are granted and I know what the priest who advised me said. If any minor defect in intent or understanding, such as not truly understanding the nature of marriage, can be used to declare a marriage null then what other conclusion am I supposed to come to other than perfect intent and knowledge are required?

Yours in Christ
Joe

Can anyone who wants an annulment say that he thinks that there might have been some defect in understanding what he was getting into when he decided to get married? How come divorce is a sin in the Orthodox Church, but it is not a sin for a Catholic to get a divorce if the tribunal requests it?

 

[davidv]

Can anyone who wants an annulment say that he thinks that there might have been some defect in understanding what he was getting into when he decided to get married? How come divorce is a sin in the Orthodox Church, but it is not a sin for a Catholic to get a divorce if the tribunal requests it?

Divorce is a sin for a Catholic. If a marriage is invalid, there is the greater sin of fornication. In the case of a invalid marraige, the divorce is a civil matter.

A declaration of nullity has no civil effect. It is my understanding that the purpose for nearly all petitions is to determine if the petitioner is free to marry. If, according to the civil authorities, a person is married, the Church would find that they are not free to marry another. Therefore a civil divorce must be in effect before the Church can rule on the validity of the previous marriage.

 

[sidbrown]

Divorce is a sin for a Catholic…

But the Church tribunal requires the couple to get a divorce before it will even hear the case?

 

[Texas_Roofer]

But the Church tribunal requires the couple to get a divorce before it will even hear the case?

Not really, If the problem is not severe enough that the couple has already separated and civilly divorced, then it is not severe enough for the tribunal to review.

 

[happilycatholic]

The divorce (or annulment) rate among Catholics (21%) is relatively the same as with Protestants (25%) and Orthodox.
religioustolerance.org/chr_dira.htm

This means many annulments are being granted. And that means many Catholic marriages are being classified as having never legitimately taken place.

Does this seem strange to anyone else but me? Am I missing something? It seem that the Catholic way of not granting divorce is cheapening the sacrament of marriage since about as many Catholics “divorce” as Protestants.

Why not just stop saying the marriages never took place (annulments) and openly acknowledge what is really going on: The Church is really allowing divorce and separating valid marriages.

If I’m missing anything, please explain.
Thanks,
K

Hi kaste:

I think we’ve spoken before.

This problem is not indicative of the Church not taking marriage seriously. It is indicative of Church ‘members’ not taking marriage seriously.

Since it is almost impossible for a couple who are both catholic and married in the Church to even get an annulment, this tells me that most of the marriages annulled are those performed outside the Church. And this tells me that catholics are not marrying in the Church for a reason. What would that be?

Catholics not taking their vows serious enough to be married in the Church. Hence a quick and painless way out. (Lack of form)

On the other hand, you have marriages by those who were not catholic at the time of marriage, lots of them. I am one of said group.

I was not raised in the Church and therefor I was not taught the catholic way of the sacrament of marriage. If I do not know what marriage truly is, then how am I to live by a standard I know nothing of?

I did not enter into my marriage with the knowlege that it is a sacrament. To me, my marriage was the most important thing in my life aside from my son, but still not a ‘sacrament’. In other words, my marriage was witnessed by God, but not bound by God.

There is such a big difference. I’m not putting the Protestant form of marriage down, but it is indeed very different from a catholic marriage. Let’s face it, for a Protestant, the ONLY real involvement of the church in the marriage tends to be optional and at most ceremonial. They don’t ‘have’ to get married in church and even if they do, it’s ceremonial at best, no sacrament involved.

For catholics the Church IS the marriage. There are three entities in a catholic marriage and one cannot achieve the third (God) outside the Church. Without the Church there is no marriage for catholics.

I think Protestants can achieve a valid marriage, but not a sacramental one. So, I say give them the annulments and then give them THE SACRAMENT OF MARRIAGE. After that, they can be held to their promise and judged by that in the end. Protestant marriages lack the fullness of the faith and do not have the essensce of being bound by God.

No one should be against annulments. So what if their Protestant marriage that they have already deemed “terminated by man” is annuled. It is God’s will to have us under His wing (His Church). Without the annulments, that cannot happen. The more sacramental marriages the better. If the Church deems a marriage invalid and that paves the way for a valid sacramental marriage complete with two people who are receiving the Body and Blood of our Lord in the Church, then hip, hip, hooray!

And let me tell you, by the time you’ve been through an annulment you’ll KNOW the person you are marrying is the ONE and it is blessed by God Himself.



~HC

 

[Kaste]

Originally Posted by josephdaniel29
Have you ever been involved in an annulment? I have and I know the grounds on which annulments are granted and I know what the priest who advised me said. If any minor defect in intent or understanding, such as not truly understanding the nature of marriage, can be used to declare a marriage null then what other conclusion am I supposed to come to other than perfect intent and knowledge are required?

Yours in Christ
Joe

Everyone on this thread should read the above 4x very slowly.

This is exactly the problem with annulments. No one can have “perfect” intent and perfect “knowledge”. Again the Catholic Church overdefining things and this gives the appearance of trying to create loopholes to make a strange teaching more palatable.

And so couples can go complain to this “tribunal” and tell them, well hey now, we actually didn’t really have full knowledge of what we were getting into, you know…" Then the tribunal assembles the necessary legal jargon to qualify the couple for annulment. So now the marriage never really happened.

Unacceptable.

Happily Catholic,
hello, it is good to hear from you again. I must say though, you appear to value too little Protestant marriages. Also I must take issue with your assertion that practically all of the annulments are given to Catholics who marry outside the Catholic Church.

There are plenty of Catholics who got married in the Catholic Church, changed their minds, and went to the “tribunals” to get the required annulments before remarrying.

And that is exactly the problem with annulments. The overwhelming majority are dishonestly given in reality. It’s almost as bad as selling indulgences. C’mon people of this forum, no marriage is performed perfectly. Conversely there are many who struggle through hard marriages who could have just as easily fooled these “tribunals” to get an annulment. Is their marriage any less genuine? No. And so I resent that a group of Catholic lawyer-types get together and decide a marriage never really happened.

No.

Solution: God hates divorce, but allows for it under certain circumstances. So Catholics should be allowed to get a divorce, rather than having to pretend (with approval of “The Tribunal”) their marriage never really happened in the first place.

K

PS: Does anyone know when the Vatican began annulments? Orthodox don’t have such a thing.

 

[davidv]

Everyone on this thread should read the above 4x very slowly.

This is exactly the problem with annulments. No one can have “perfect” intent and perfect “knowledge”. Again the Catholic Church overdefining things and this gives the appearance of trying to create loopholes to make a strange teaching more palatable.

And so couples can go complain to this “tribunal” and tell them, well hey now, we actually didn’t really have full knowledge of what we were getting into, you know…" Then the tribunal assembles the necessary legal jargon to qualify the couple for annulment. So now the marriage never really happened.

Unacceptable.

Happily Catholic,
hello, it is good to hear from you again. I must say though, you appear to value too little Protestant marriages. Also I must take issue with your assertion that practically all of the annulments are given to Catholics who marry outside the Catholic Church.

There are plenty of Catholics who got married in the Catholic Church, changed their minds, and went to the “tribunals” to get the required annulments before remarrying.

And that is exactly the problem with annulments. The overwhelming majority are dishonestly given in reality. It’s almost as bad as selling indulgences. C’mon people of this forum, no marriage is performed perfectly. Conversely there are many who struggle through hard marriages who could have just as easily fooled these “tribunals” to get an annulment. Is their marriage any less genuine? No. And so I resent that a group of Catholic lawyer-types get together and decide a marriage never really happened.

No.

Solution: God hates divorce, but allows for it under certain circumstances. So Catholics should be allowed to get a divorce, rather than having to pretend (with approval of “The Tribunal”) their marriage never really happened in the first place.

K

PS: Does anyone know when the Vatican began annulments? Orthodox don’t have such a thing.

It is perfectly clear what your personal opinion are on this matter. However, it is also clear that you have rejected all explanations that debunk you definition of what annulments are. ISTM that your command contained in the first line above applies equally.

 

[sidbrown]

Everyone on this thread should read the above 4x very slowly.

This is exactly the problem with annulments. No one can have “perfect” intent and perfect “knowledge”. Again the Catholic Church overdefining things and this gives the appearance of trying to create loopholes to make a strange teaching more palatable.

And so couples can go complain to this “tribunal” and tell them, well hey now, we actually didn’t really have full knowledge of what we were getting into, you know…" Then the tribunal assembles the necessary legal jargon to qualify the couple for annulment. So now the marriage never really happened.

Unacceptable.

Happily Catholic,
hello, it is good to hear from you again. I must say though, you appear to value too little Protestant marriages. Also I must take issue with your assertion that practically all of the annulments are given to Catholics who marry outside the Catholic Church.

There are plenty of Catholics who got married in the Catholic Church, changed their minds, and went to the “tribunals” to get the required annulments before remarrying.

And that is exactly the problem with annulments. The overwhelming majority are dishonestly given in reality. It’s almost as bad as selling indulgences. C’mon people of this forum, no marriage is performed perfectly. Conversely there are many who struggle through hard marriages who could have just as easily fooled these “tribunals” to get an annulment. Is their marriage any less genuine? No. And so I resent that a group of Catholic lawyer-types get together and decide a marriage never really happened.

No.

Solution: God hates divorce, but allows for it under certain circumstances. So Catholics should be allowed to get a divorce, rather than having to pretend (with approval of “The Tribunal”) their marriage never really happened in the first place.

K

PS: Does anyone know when the Vatican began annulments? Orthodox don’t have such a thing.

This makes a lot of sense because if anyone can get an annulment it would mean that no one is really married.

 

[Texas_Roofer]

This makes a lot of sense because if anyone can get an annulment it would mean that no one is really married.

No, it would mean those who seek annulments were not married, verses those who actually married and do not seek annulments. There is a philoshyical flaw in the process at which you point. If a married couple become one why do you seek to split yourself apart? Many do not seek to split themselves in two however many feel their is no such split needed because they share no unity.

hope that helps

 

[mardukm]

Dear Kaste,

PS: Does anyone know when the Vatican began annulments? Orthodox don’t have such a thing.

The Church first started recognizing annulments since the fourth century. The annulments were normally recognized in cases of marriage (1) between kin, or next of kin, (2) between a believer and a non-believer, (3) that was forced, (4) by a priest after ordination, (5) between two people where one spouse was previously deserted and the one who deserted returns, (6) between two people where the previous spouse of one was thought to be dead (by virtue of being in the military or otherwise), but then is discovered to still be alive. These marriages were adjudged to be invalid or unlawful, and were not recognized by the Church.

Blessings,
Marduk

 

[happilycatholic]

Happily Catholic,
hello, it is good to hear from you again. I must say though, you appear to value too little Protestant marriages. Also I must take issue with your assertion that practically all of the annulments are given to Catholics who marry outside the Catholic Church.

 

[happilycatholic]

I think there is a need to clarify the claim that the Church is somehow handing out annulments like candy.

First of all, why are people so quick to blame the Church? Invalid marriage can ONLY be blamed on the two people that enter into it. What makes it invalid? People lose the tendancy for commitment. Why? Only God knows. An invalid marriage can only be revealed in time. For whatever reason, two people that should never have been in a ceremony of marriage have done just that. Obviously, it didn’t work out. There’s your first indication that it may have been invalid. Now the duty of the Church is to find out if, because of the instant state of the marriage (divorce) it was ever valid to begin with. This is so the Church DOESN’T declare valid marriages null.

We must recognize the biggest difference between Protestant marriage and catholic marriage: Sacrament

This is where we as catholics believe God comes in, literally and physically. I’m not saying that God isn’t present in Protestant marriages, but we cannot ignore the fact that we believe in Sacraments people. That makes the two very different to begin with.

If sacrament is present, then whatever goes wrong after that is human factor. Because we have received the grace of God so His part is there. Without the sacrament, you are taking a risk. One might say Protestants don’t have grace imparted upon the marriage. I won’t go that far. Although, this is one of the reasons why we beleive as catholics, we have the fullness of faith. I personally think God imparts grace where God wishes. But it’s still up to the Church to find out which marriages were intended by God and those that were initated in error by their human parties.

Let’s face it, some of us entered into marriages that were never blessed. Mine wasn’t and neither me or my child’s father did anything to earn it. I think God can impart grace at any time during a marriage as well. It just wasn’t God’s will for me to be married.

So already, we have a distinct difference between Protestant marriages and catholic ones and this also infers a difference between the ceremonies of a ‘wedding’. Both of these aspects are very important. One involves the promise and the other involves the carrying out of the promise.

People are trying to claim that the influx of applications for annulment are evidence of the dishonesty, imprudence, or flippant acts of the Church with regard to marriage.

Why, why for crying out loud could this not be seen as an influx of Protestant conversion to the Faith? Because that’s exactly what it is. That is exactly why the Vatican has not formally addressed the influx in numbers of applications for annulment. Do you actually think the Holy See doesn’t realize the numbers going up? Of course it does and it has investigated it on more than one occasion just to make sure that there are checks and balances to prevent the Church falling into sin.

It would be a very grave situation if the Church were to begin to give annulments that weren’t justified. The whole of the Church would be at risk for sinfulness.

I think there are a lot of folks out there getting married on a whim, marrying a person they hope will change, marrying to quickly, or marrying for reasons other than love. This is not the fault of God or His Church. This is the evil in the world people. Let’s not shortchange these same people when they want to come into the Church.

One other thing, as a catholic I realize now that my marriage is a furtherance of God’s will for me AND for His Church on earth. Good marriages witness to God’s will for us.
I now know why divorce is NOT an option. Thank God that His Church won’t punish me for not having been raised catholic. Thank God the Church doesn’t punish people for not knowing what the sacrament of marriage is. Because there is a LOT of people suffering from this very thing.

~HC

 

[sidbrown]

Argh!!! No valid, sacramental marriage was ever performed in a catholic Church??? So you don’t believe ANY marriage is ordained by God?

Wouldn’t that be a logical conclusion to make if any marriage can be annulled?

 

[mardukm]

Wouldn’t that be a logical conclusion to make if any marriage can be annulled?

Where does the Catholic Church teach that “any marriage can be annulled?”

Does the Catholic Church teach that a valid marriage can be annulled? Obviously not!

Thus, it can’t be true that the Catholic Church teaches (or even claims) that “any marriage can be annulled.”

Blessings,
Marduk

 

[happilycatholic]

Divorce is a sin for a Catholic. If a marriage is invalid, there is the greater sin of fornication. In the case of a invalid marraige, the divorce is a civil matter.

A declaration of nullity has no civil effect. It is my understanding that the purpose for nearly all petitions is to determine if the petitioner is free to marry. If, according to the civil authorities, a person is married, the Church would find that they are not free to marry another. Therefore a civil divorce must be in effect before the Church can rule on the validity of the previous marriage.

Divorce is not a sin. A *divorced catholic is fully permitted to receive communion.

The sin is remarriage IF the previous marriage was valid.

Divorce is definitely frowned upon in the Church, but NOT a sin.

~HC

 

[happilycatholic]

Wouldn’t that be a logical conclusion to make if any marriage can be annulled?

The conclusion that any marriage can be annuled is the invalid one.

~HC

 

[happilycatholic]

Not really, If the problem is not severe enough that the couple has already separated and civilly divorced, then it is not severe enough for the tribunal to review.

Not correct. On the petition one of the terms of petitoning the Tribunal is that there is a final dissolution of the subject marriage.

~HC

 

[happilycatholic]

Can anyone who wants an annulment say that he thinks that there might have been some defect in understanding what he was getting into when he decided to get married? How come divorce is a sin in the Orthodox Church, but it is not a sin for a Catholic to get a divorce if the tribunal requests it?

Tribunals do not request divorces. The Church has absolutely nothing to do with divorce. Annulments are NOT Church divorces.

~HC

 

[Texas_Roofer]

Not correct. On the petition one of the terms of petitoning the Tribunal is that there is a final dissolution of the subject marriage.

~HC

?? I think you misunderstood “a final dissolution of the subject marriage” cannot occur if the couple is still civilly married or still living together.