Anyone else uneasy about annulments?

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GraceDK

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It seems that a lot of people on CAF
  • Have had their previous marriage annulled
  • Expect to get an annullment if they apply
  • hardly knows anyone who ever received a ‘no’
  • thinks its okay to apply at other tribunals if the first one says no.
I had a canon law class at the university some years ago. Taught by a priest and canon lawyer. I was quite surprised when he, a faithful man of the Church, openly admitted that the anullment procedure is very much abused today in America and Europe. Basically a lot of people get annulments from “nice guys” while their past marriage is really valid.

Seems to me that as long as this abuse goes on the credibility of the whole Catholic Marriage institution is undermined. I start to think that if I would ever get married the “Catholic divorce” would always be there as a threat, and that according to all the excuses people have for thinking they should be given annulments - like my dad verbally abused me so I was sad when I married - most marriages are probably not valid…

I mean… we are all wounded people. We can all say: I was immature etc etc…

Anyone feels the same way… or am I just an angry monster for thinking that I cannot take this seriously because I see it ruins the credibility of the Church and causes scandal.
 
Oh dear…

Just as an FYI, there was a recent thread about people being hurt by some very harsh anti-annulment remarks on CAF.
 
GraceDK said:
Anyone feels the same way… or am I just an angry monster for thinking that I cannot take this seriously because I see it ruins the credibility of the Church and causes scandal.
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Maybe you need to meet some people that have had their annulments denied. 🤷

I am sure my uncle would be happy to talk to you, same with my neighbor.

I think it is just that people that have had their annulments denied, don’t talk about it.
 
No, I’m not ‘uneasy’ about it. It’s fairly obvious that people are not prepared for the Sacrament. I don’t think they’re abusing the system, I really believe they weren’t forthright when they got married in the first place.
 
GraceDK said:
It seems that a lot of people on CAF
  • Have had their previous marriage annulled
  • Expect to get an annullment if they apply
  • hardly knows anyone who ever received a ‘no’
  • thinks its okay to apply at other tribunals if the first one says no.
I had a canon law class at the university some years ago. Taught by a priest and canon lawyer. I was quite surprised when he, a faithful man of the Church, openly admitted that the anullment procedure is very much abused today in America and Europe. Basically a lot of people get annulments from “nice guys” while their past marriage is really valid.

Seems to me that as long as this abuse goes on the credibility of the whole Catholic Marriage institution is undermined. I start to think that if I would ever get married the “Catholic divorce” would always be there as a threat, and that according to all the excuses people have for thinking they should be given annulments - like my dad verbally abused me so I was sad when I married - most marriages are probably not valid…

I mean… we are all wounded people. We can all say: I was immature etc etc…

Anyone feels the same way… or am I just an angry monster for thinking that I cannot take this seriously because I see it ruins the credibility of the Church and causes scandal.
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I would gently and respectfully ask you why you feel anything at all about other people’s annulments,? The onus is on you to prove the things you’ve written, not just provide ancedotal proof.

Unless you have been affected by this issue and have any real sources for your concerns besides hearsay, you really have no need to worry about it. Before accusing Church tribunals of being “soft”–thus saying that they do not take their responsibilities seriously you should be sure of your facts, and be sure those facts are truly relevant.

If you have any real need to know how annulments are handled in your diocese you should contact your own bishop’s office about it.
 
GraceDK said:
It seems that a lot of people on CAF
  • Have had their previous marriage annulled
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Well, there are lots of people on CAF, many of whom come here specifically to ask these sorts of questions, talk about their experience, and share their knowledge.

Like I would expect people who want to lose weight to be on Weight Watchers website. “Why are there so many overweight people on WW?” or “Why are there so many ppl who lost weight on WW on their boards?” would sort of be a silly question.
GraceDK said:
  • Expect to get an annullment if they apply
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It is their priest’s job to help them understand they should not expect a decree of nullity.
GraceDK said:
  • hardly knows anyone who ever received a ‘no’
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There are lots of people who have been denied. Also keep in mind, those who do not have a solid case are rejected at the priest/parish level and not allowed to move forward with a formal petition.
GraceDK said:
  • thinks its okay to apply at other tribunals if the first one says no.
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Canon law provides for it.
GraceDK said:
Basically a lot of people get annulments from “nice guys” while their past marriage is really valid.
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To this, I say prove it. People say all sorts of things, it does not make them true.
GraceDK said:
Seems to me that as long as this abuse goes on the credibility of the whole Catholic Marriage institution is undermined. I start to think that if I would ever get married the “Catholic divorce” would always be there as a threat, and that according to all the excuses people have for thinking they should be given annulments - like my dad verbally abused me so I was sad when I married - most marriages are probably not valid…
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Your entire premise is based on something some professor said with absolutely no evidence. Seems like you are expending an awful lot of energy and have a lot of emotion around something that I don’t believe to be at all accurate. I would also like to point out you have seriously oversimplified the grounds for nullity, and “dad was mean to me” and “I was sad when I got married” are not one of them.
GraceDK said:
Anyone feels the same way… or am I just an angry monster for thinking that I cannot take this seriously because I see it ruins the credibility of the Church and causes scandal.
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I think you’ve put a lot of weight on what this one professor (who may have an agenda or ax to grind you are unaware of) without any sort of empircal evidence.
 
I think you might find this article helpful:

Annulments in America by Dr. Edward Peters

Dr. Peters is a Canon Lawyer. I think he does a great job of looking at the issue objectively.

We should not lightly conclude that the system is being “abused”.
 
Part of the problem with objectively looking at annulments is that it is difficult to get figures on the rate of successful/denied annulments. One article on the net claims that the success rate is 97% from the St. Paul-Minneapolis marriage tribunal. That seems inordinately high except for the fact that the marriage tribunal presiding judge states that many marriages which would likely be denied annulment are discouraged from even applying. That thins the number, but it is unclear how many cases are discouraged from applying in the US or western world.

Even if you grant that annulment success rates are abnormally high, how do you determine that it is not a problem with the culture’s understanding of marriage, or the marriage prep process?

I agree though, that **if **a lot of abuse is going on then it subtly undermines the sacrament itself and lends credence to the term “Catholic divorce”. It also ironically undermines genuine annulments as well, since people can’t be sure that their annulments weren’t granted in well meaning sympathy.
 
GraceDK said:
Anyone feels the same way… or am I just an angry monster for thinking that I cannot take this seriously because I see it ruins the credibility of the Church and causes scandal.
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Well, you’re not an angry monster. You are concerned with the credibility of the Church and it’s respect for a sacrament. I tend to look to Christ’s assurance that He would guide the Church in all truth, and trust in the authority He gave it when the Church chooses to exercise it.
Code: 
Just anecdotal, but my parish Priest said the annulment approvals may seem high because most people considering asking for an examination for declaration of nullity are screened out at the parish. That is, he turns away more people than he forwards to the tribunal. Additionally, of those he thinks may have grounds and he gives the paperwork, many don't complete and return it. The Tribunal starts out with a small pool of possible annulment appeals which have already been reviewed with an eye towards whether there is even a legitimate case.
Additionally, the Tribunal first reviews petitions for grounds themselves. I don't know if the ones they determine have no grounds to even investigate are included in the statistics.
Just my .02.
 
GraceDK said:
Anyone feels the same way… .
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It doesn’t bother me because I don’t think it’s any of my business. If a Catholic marries, they have to know themselves what they believe about that and how committed they are.

I also think that, really, I have no insider information and it’s not my place to judge how these things are handled by those whose business it is to handle them.
 
1ke said:
There are lots of people who have been denied. Also keep in mind, those who do not have a solid case are rejected at the priest/parish level and not allowed to move forward with a formal petition.
To this, I say prove it. People say all sorts of things, it does not make them true.

First of all, its CAF which first gave me the sense that something wrong is going on, because I saw all these poeple having annullments and urging others to try to get annullments as if it was just a matter of time, and not a matter of yes or no…
Tonight then, I read some articles and it seems that the two statistical numbers that come up all the time are these
that over 95 percent are granted an annulment, when they apply. the other number showed that Americans get far more annullments than the rest of the world combined…

Your entire premise is based on something some professor said with absolutely no evidence.

Absolutely no evidence? This was a man who had been working at a tribunal for over 20 years and is a canon lawyer in Rome, asked by my university to teach because of his faithfulness to the Church and his extended knowlege of these things. He also quoted statistics to back up his oppinion and precisely said that a false sense of tolerance guides many judges at the tribunals. Sorry… but when he says there is abuse going on, I tend to believe it.

Seems like you are expending an awful lot of energy

Really? Writing a post on CAF is expending a lot of energy?

and have a lot of emotion around something that I don’t believe to be at all accurate.

I don’t have a lot of emotion about this… I am simply curious about the (mis)use if anullments. It seems like I have opened a can of worms. Thats okay though. I don’t believe in taboos.

I would also like to point out you have seriously oversimplified the grounds for nullity, and “dad was mean to me” and “I was sad when I got married” are not one of them.

No I havent. I was simply referring to some posts I saw on another thread which precisely reflected such scenarios. As I said, I have studied canon law to some degree in this area so I know what factors are grounds… and also where some of the vaguer sentences are in the canon law book.…

I think you’ve put a lot of weight on what this one professor (who may have an agenda or ax to grind you are unaware of) without any sort of empircal evidence.

**You have a lot of imagination about who I have spoken with and how things were presented to me.
Interestingly… I once heard said, on EWTN ,that the big taboo among Catholics is divorce… if I talk about, say, homosexuality, no one will tell me that I am not allowed to pose a question or display a widespread sentiment because I am not homosexual… Until now, this thread has only proven to me that something odd is going on. **
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I can only offer anecdotal evidence on this thread. I am a Baptist who has been married to a Catholic for 25 years (and two days). When we were looking into a church wedding in 1987, we were informed that because I (a non-Catholic) had married a non-Catholic in a cermony by a non-Catholic in a place other than a Catholic Church, that we were bound to have the marriage annuled by the Catholic Church in order for my wife to continue receiving communion. We have gone through years of trial and effort to get this done and now are in the position where we are finally ready to proceed with the tribunal.

All I can say is this is not something I do lightly. It’s something I am doing for my wife. It’s important to me because it’s important to her. Getting the Church to overturn a quickie short-lived wedding when I was young and foolish in order to recognize a lifelong commitment to the person I love and allow her to resume an active role in the Church is something that I just don’t see causing scandal or ruining the Church’s credibility.

I think that it should be viewed in another light - as a good thing that so many are willing to go through the trouble of completing the process in order to have the Church recognize their commitment. It’s not an easy process, despite what some may say or think, and it’s not something one entertains without a lot of thought and dedication.
 
Rence said:
No, I’m not ‘uneasy’ about it. It’s fairly obvious that people are not prepared for the Sacrament. I don’t think they’re abusing the system, I really believe they weren’t forthright when they got married in the first place.
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This.

They didn’t even understand the requirements of the sacrament, most even book the church last rather than first… forgetting all about pre-cana classes in the process… given that level of misinformation about what marraige is and its importance, it’s no surprise that, yes, there are a lot of people out there contracting invalid marriages.

That’s not the fault of the tribunals, it’s the fault of us parishoners, who have a duty to educate ourselves on each of the sacraments before we partake of them. Instead, there are a great many who go out and contract marriages KNOWING they are outside the norms of the church (for example, getting married by a protestant church without a dispensation because the church wasn’t available on the day they had previously booked their reception hall and caterers).

And I dare say the cases of abuse where a marriage is considered invalid because one member was “sad” when the marriage was contracted are VERY few and far between… probably more urban legend than reality.
 
Julia_Mae said:
It doesn’t bother me because I don’t think it’s any of my business. If a Catholic marries, they have to know themselves what they believe about that and how committed they are.
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There’s a problem with that line of reasoning. Marriage is a public act. The spouses are acknowledging their holy and lifelong commitment before several parties:
  1. The man about to be married.
  2. The woman about to be married.
  3. The priest and the Church.
  4. God
  5. The families involved.
  6. The friends involved.
  7. The community as a whole (parish or neighborhood).
  8. Depending on the governmental policies, the entire country (This is why the whole gay marriage thing and divorce have helped destroy the basic concepts the country and its culture was founded upon).
So an annulment is essentially telling all of those parties that the marriage was really a mistake/fraud in the first place. That is our business, and any process to determine that is certainly serious business.
 
When I got married, it was rash, only dated a month and a half prior, was against the will of my parents, never intended on being with her for life “if it didn’t work out”, never wanted kids nor was I open to them with her, no priest, no church, just a JOP, and most importantly- I didn’t know any of that was totally unacceptable. I wasn’t Catholic. When I found out WHAT marriage is according to the Church, and thus, God, I was mortified at what I’d done. It was actually one of the things which drew me to the Church.

Looking back, I can see in no way that I had a valid marriage. Knowing what marriage IS, I would have NEVER married that horrible woman.

I have yet to apply for the annulment simply because I haven’t. I don’t plan on getting remarried anytime soon, but, I want to know: is this valid?

If they say it is, I cannot, under any circumstance, be with my ex-wife. We are already divorced. I despise her in the context of a wife. I don’t even like being around her as a person. If I have a valid marriage, I’ll have to figure out a way to stay in favor of the Church while protecting myself from what amounts to a narcissistic, evil, angry, despicable, stupid woman ( I thought it was the language barrier, no, she’s just an idiot). I wouldn’t be comfortable with her dogsitting, much less being in charge at any point of my theoretical children, or any activity in my life.

Given the things I read on here, it sounds like a lot of Catholics also don’t know what marriage is, and they seek annulment proceedings to determine the validity of the marriage.

The Church does the same thing for Baptism: if it is improper form/matter, it’s invalid. If it’s all proper in form and matter, it’s valid.
Edit: instead of Kris, Bob,
I’ll let Bob Dylan sing me out:

youtube.com/watch?v=yZPh3hpxLKs
 
Another perspective: Clearly far too many Catholics turn their back on the Church, get divorced, and remarry outside the Church. We all know people in that situation. Those seeking annulments at least are attempting to remain within the disciplines and boundaries of the church. That has to be more positive than the alternative.
 
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