Yeah, and many non-religious occupations as well. Doesn’t seem unreasonable to me although I’m not sure how this would be carried out. What conditions would be a basis for barrier to the vocation of marriage, which ones could be ‘overcome’, who makes the decision, are some conditions incompatible in some couples but not others, who sets the standards etc.
I don’t think you can use CAF as an accurate barometer for divorce and annulment attitudes or frequency. CAF being what it is - one of the biggest clearinghouses for things Catholic on the Internet - is naturally going to encourage threads started people who have questions or who are seeking advice about their divorce or annulment. And with the exception of a few true cannon law experts, most of the respondents are going to base their replies solely on their own divorce/experiences.
My concern is a more pragmatic one - who’s going to pay for the screening? My husband took the MMPI-2 and underwent a psych evaluation for to qualify for a job, and that process cost us $2,500 in 2008. Contrast that to the $75 we paid for pre-cana.
The tribunals seem to be able to diagnose people on second hand information without ever actually meeting them. So why couldn’t they work their magic just as easily before the wedding? Have a couple of witnesses submit testimony in writing concerning fitness for marriage and then have it reviewed before the wedding.My concern is a more pragmatic one - who’s going to pay for the screening? My husband took the MMPI-2 and underwent a psych evaluation for to qualify for a job, and that process cost us $2,500 in 2008. Contrast that to the $75 we paid for pre-cana.
Luna
I can’t tell if you’re being facetious, but what you’re suggesting isn’t a valid or reliable way to conduct a psychological evaluation.
The claim that the herd is thinned prior to the tribunal is brought up in every thread on annulments but I’ve yet to see any evidence presented to support it.
I would also blame the tribunal for that. They should be less gullible
If someone has been predicting winning stock with 97% accuracy for the past 30 years I don’t need to look at their numbers; I already know they must have inside information.One could speculate either way, but they don’t have any proof for either assertion granted the private nature of annulments. That renders your speculation as illigitimate as theirs.
For the same reason that you can’t lock up someone you believe to be a psychopath when he hasn’t committed any crimes. If someone freely admits (on a request for dispensation, for instance) that they are not properly disposed to receive the sacrament, that is one thing, but you cannot do an evaluation and conclude by conjecture that the person is not capable when the person asserts that he or she is.
Actually in many cases the Tribunals send testimony for psychological evaluations as well as people. Also they are using expert testimony from psychologists and other experts. It is often not just diagnoses from second hand testimony as you put it.
While having the maturity to understand the duties and obligations of marriage as you see them may not be unattainable, having an understanding of the duties and obligations of marriage as the Church sees them is another matter entirely. There was certainly a substantial gap between what I expected from our marriage and what my wife expected from our marriage, to say nothing of what the Church expected of our marriage. I wouldn’t say it’s entirely on the shoulders of the priests who administered such lacking marriage prep, but they certainly gave a lot of ammunition to the people seeking annulments.
The requirement can’t be all that high if a 16 year old man and a 14 year old woman are considered old enough by the Church to assume the duties and obligations of marriage.
As an advocate for the petitions for nullaty of Marriage I can honestly state that the discussions that I have had with those seeking annulments has caused at least 60% of them to not persue their cases. Furthermore I would say that about 20% of the cases that go through the Tribunal are not continued.
That is the minimum even if all other conditions are met. IOW, this minimum legal age recognizes that even those of us who seem born mature enough to marry have to wait some minimum amount of time before we can do so. That law does not imply that everyone will be suitably mature to marry by the time they reach that age.
You can’t go by what you see here. People come here with doubt and questions. It’s the troubled who post about their marriage.
I think a couple’s maturity level is irrelevant if nobody has ever taken the time to sit them down and say, “This is what the Church views as a valid marriage, and this is what the Church expects of you in a valid marriage.” The point of marriage isn’t to show you’re friends how much you love one another, or to have a built in travel-mate or designated driver when you’re out getting wasted. The point isn’t to acquire a second income so you can buy that awesome fixer-upper, then have separate beds, separate lives and only see each other in passing on Monday mornings. The Church doesn’t expect you to spend 10-15 years on the pill then blow your life savings on fertility treatments because everybody else is having a trophy baby and you want to be part of the crowd. Without proper guidance and instruction at the beginning, people won’t know what’s truly expected of them and will enter into unions that, by the letter of the law, aren’t considered valid by the Church. Better, more thorough marriage preparation might cut back on some of these invalid marriages, and reduce the need for so many annulments.
A “designated driver when you’re out getting wasted”? Someone with good judgment would sign up for that?
::raises hand::: Because I alleged a personality disorder on the part of my ex-spouse, and because he refuses to release years of psychiatric records, my diocesan tribunal did indeed send our big fat file to a psychological expert for evaluation. That testimony was not released along with the other witnesses’, so I don’t know what it said.
For the people we know like this, they’ve flaunted their situations to us enough that I’m pretty comfortable characterizing them that way. They’ve also made it clear that they disapprove of our “unfortunate” situation (married, faithful, kids, happy). That’s not to say they won’t have an epiphany at some point and realize they could have invested their time differently. Perhaps with better catechesis and marriage preparation they might have thought of it 10-20 years ago.A “designated driver when you’re out getting wasted”? Someone with good judgment would sign up for that?
I don’t know that I’d use rhetoric such as “because everybody else is having a trophy baby and you want to be part of the crowd”. I don’t think that reflects an appreciation of the sad situation of having let one’s youth slip away without realizing the consequences. Worse yet, couples who take a long time to have a baby through no delay of theirs get enough flak as it is. It is worth going out of our way to avoid hurting feelings that already have plenty of road rash inflicted by the rash judgment of others. As far as the situation where affluent spouses live largely separate lives, that is rarely something that is arrived at by dreaming about it prior to marriage, but rather comes when it is not appreciated that such an unwanted destination can be reached for want of the substantial effort required to steer elsewhere!