In every article I have read which has taken the postion that there are too many annulments, there are selective statistics, illogical arguments, presumptions and assumptions. It is an area that is problematic, and is so often presumed to indicate sloppy theology. The truth seems to be at least in part, somewhere else.
It would take a great deal of naivety to believe that every last annulment granted since the change in Canon law has been properly granted. But the presumption that seems to accompany these articles is that many (meaning a large number) to better than half of them are phony.
I really donāt think that anyone has come up with any sort of survey that can establish such a fact, as the information of the annulment grounds is almost entirely apocryphal; it is not as if there was a public record of the proceedings of each case. So to begin with, the actual basis of the decisions with all the supporting facts is generally not available.
Short of a large sampling of entire cases from a broad range of diocesan tribunals, there is a critical lack of evidence.
But letās look at it another way. To begin with, catechesis started to be dumbed down in the early 70ās. There are about two generations out there who know little or nothing about the sacraments (or much of anthing else to do with the Faith). In addition, we live in a world that for the last umpteen years has been super-saturated with sex; estimates are that 80 to 90% of people entering marriage have had intercourse prior to marriage, and a large number of them have lived together openly; this didnāt start 5 or 10 years ago. Nor are Catholics immune to this issue, jsut as they are not immune to ABC.
If for no other reason than the dumbing down of Catholic teaching, there are a whole lot of people who have little or no idea of marriage as a sacrament, and as a permanent state of life (until deathā¦).
But letās go a bit further.
There are about 50,000 to 60,000 annulments a year.
A portion of them are for form - that is, a Catholic got married without a dispensation, that is, without having a priest as the official witness. In other words, in front of a minister or some other official such as a judge. Automatic grant of annulment; however, the number of Catholics who do this is likey much larger than it used to be, where now about 30 - 35 % of Catholics attend Mass regularly, and back when we had the old Code, about 70% did.
We now have many more āmixedā marriages than we used to; with a larger number of spouses who were not Catholic to begin with, and had who knows what attitude toawards the permanency of marriage; given that many Protestant Churches are not exactly explicit about divorce being a no-no, they come with whatever baggage to the tribunal. No surprise they might be gtranted one.
And then we have the Catholics I first mentioned, who may do the form right, but were raised with a ābutterflyā form of religious training.
But, since this is about statistics, lets talk about the one the articles never mention.
There are about 50 to 60,000 annulments. But there are about 8,000,000 Catholics who are divorced.
Which means that about less than 3/4ths of one percent of the divorced Catholics are getting an annulment (we have already established that not all who get an annulment are Catholic).
Put in that perspective, one wonders why there are not way more people getting one. With the absolutely abysmal history over the last 35 to 40 years of catechesis, and the attitude of society in general (which always, throughout hsitory, has had an impact on Catholics), I find it bemusing that people would protest that there are too many granted. Bemused is perhaps not a strong enough word.
), and, therefore, where your āaverage European Catholicā (however that may be defined) would remarry outside the Church without ever thinking of seeking an annulment, your āaverage American Catholicā (same caveat) would be much more likely to seek the Churchās sanction of their new marriage. And up go the numbers again.