Are there any Teachings from Saints about annulments?

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Ammi said:
“Back in the day” meaning… ever?

Where is one Saint who describes what is happening in today’s tribunals. Just one, in 2000 years.
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By “back in the day” I mean any time prior to the post-Vatican II era. You did not have diocesan tribunals that processed massive numbers of annulments. Back in those days, you got married, and if things didn’t work out, too bad, you were stuck. Even civil divorce was extremely difficult until the 1960s or 1970s, and it carried a horrible social stigma. People stayed together even if they hated each other, and truth be told, a lot of women suffered in silence because they had no way out, no way to support themselves even if divorce had been easy to get, so they had to stay and take whatever a bad husband dished out. I have to think that more than a few good-hearted men suffered at the hands of difficult wives as well.

It would have to be a fairly recent saint, to have written an account of something that didn’t take place until recent decades, and I don’t know of any such writings.
 
Ammi said:
On January 29, 1993, in an address again to the Roman Rota, Pope John Paul II spoke about “mental reservations” that many people who apply for decrees of nullity claim to have had on their wedding day, arguing that they invalidate their marriage because they really didn’t mean what they said. Of this the Holy Father responded, "If there is a ‘mental reserve’ at the moment the vows are pronounced, that must be thoroughly proven."
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That is really not something you could prove.

This is why I have wondered if, at least for some cases, the Church might consider instituting a procedure by which one or both parties swear, under pain of perjury and mortal sin, that they had a certain psychological mindset or resolve, that impaired their ability to give full willful consent and/or to contract a valid marriage. If they are telling the truth, then the marriage is invalid. If they are lying, then it would be “on them”, and innocent parties (the spouse who did not have this mindset, future spouses that either the lying or the innocent party might marry) could not be blamed for anything that might result from this.

I can foresee, though, that someone might want the trappings or social respectability of a church wedding so badly, or to be able to attract and marry a highly desirable spouse (wealth, power, youth, beauty, etc.) within the Church, that they would lie to be able to accomplish this.
 
My point is that St John Paul II’s and St Jerome’s, are very rare examples of a Saint (Doctor/Pope) explaining ligitimate reasons for invalidity. And JPII’s really restricts the ground of incapacity to the most severe psychopathology, and St Jerome’s to forced marriage (referencing Deut. 22).
 
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I recall, shortly before he resigned, Pope Benedict and Cardinal Burke when he was head of the Rota were working to tighten up annulments with the pontifical council for legislative texts so they weren’t handed out so much. Of course, Pope Francis got rid of Burke and went in the exact opposite direction.

I will say, as someone who has not been through the process (so take with a huge grain of salt), I have the impression that annulments are abused to the point of making the indissolubility of marriage practically theoretical. Their commonality of being granted and the fee collected make them seem like the old abuse of indulgences–I’ve even heard people who have gone through complain it is just a money making scheme. It seems like a modified version of Tetzel’s rhyme:

“As soon as a coin in the coffer rings / the soul from matrimony springs.”
 
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You might want to read some scholarly works on the King Henry VIII’s petition for nullity. Don’t just read the sensational stuff for the movies, but, look at the complexities of both nullity after the marriage but the dispensation that was required in order for Henry and Catherine.

In those eras, decrees and dispensations were not rare in the political chess that was marriage for Royals.

ETA. You may want to email the Tribunal office at your Diocese and speak to Canonist. They studied for this

Cannot give you book titles, I have read so many of them that I do not remember details of them individually.
 
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Genesis315 said:
I’ve even heard people who have gone through complain it is just a money making scheme.
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It’s certainly not that. Even before they were free, nullity cases cost the Church far more than the fairly token fee collected from petitioners.
 
Matthew 19:6
So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”
 
JoeShlabotnik said:
Matthew 19:6
So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”
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If there’s no bond, there’s nothing to separate. A null marriage is not a marriage: it never was one.
 
Ammi said:
I did find a letter from St Jerome, mentioning an invalid marriage case, and then contrasting it with a valid marriage, to a husband with many sins.

http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3001055.htm
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What does St.Jerome mean by this?

“What I am about to say may sound novel but after all it is not new but old for it is supported by the witness of the old testament. If she leaves her second husband and desires to be reconciled with her first, she cannot be so now; for it is written in Deuteronomy: When a man has taken a wife, and married her, and it come to pass that she find no favour in his eyes, because he has found some uncleanness in her; then let him write her a bill of divorcement, and give it in her hand, and send her out of his house. And when she is departed out of his house, she may go and be another man’s wife. And if the latter husband hate her, and write her a bill of divorcement and gives it in her hand, and sends her out of his house; or if the latter husband die which took her to be his wife; her former husband, which sent her away may not take her again to be his wife, after that she is defiled; for that is abomination before the Lord: and you shall not cause the land to sin, which the Lord your God gives you for an inheritance. Deuteronomy 24:1-4 Wherefore, I beseech you, do your best to comfort her and to urge her to seek salvation. Diseased flesh calls for the knife and the searing-iron. The wound is to blame and not the healing art, if with a cruelty that is really kindness a physician to spare does not spare, and to be merciful is cruel.”
 
If there is no bond, how can people be married for 15 years, 20 years, 30 years, or more. Then seek an annulment. Seems like a loophole for those who want to divorce, yet want to be able to receive the sacrament at Mass.
 
Genesis315 said:
I have the impression that annulments are abused to making the indissolubility of marriage practically theoretical.
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I see your point. I think of it more along this line: such abuse could make a binding act of marital consent practically theoretical.

Dan
 
JoeShlabotnik said:
If there is no bond, how can people be married for 15 years, 20 years, 30 years, or more. Then seek an annulment. Seems like a loophole for those who want to divorce, yet want to be able to receive the sacrament at Mass.
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I can’t say why it took that long for the process to start as there could be any number of reasons (like a spouse lying for example). But time doesn’t determine the validity of a Sacrament. If the Church thought it was just a loophole to let people live in mortal sin and still receive the Eucharist (since I imagine that is what you mean by what you said), then the Church would have never permitted it.
 
Back to the time of Moses, people asked for divorce. And Moses allowed it.
But God never said it was okay.
And I do not believe a marriage of 15, 20, 30 or more years could not be valid. I don’t care what those seeking an “annulment” may say.
But this is my belief.
You and I have argued to point time and again.
I will NOT change my mind on the matter.
 
LittleFlower378 said:
Diseased flesh calls for the knife and the searing-iron. The wound is to blame and not the healing art, if with a cruelty that is really kindness a physician to spare does not spare, and to be merciful is cruel.”
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Well what does he mean by this?

And is he saying that a husband should never take back an adulterous wife?
Or does he mean he should not take her back unless she repent?
 
JoeShlabotnik said:
Back to the time of Moses, people asked for divorce. And Moses allowed it.
But God never said it was okay.
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An annulment is not a divorce. Divorce separates people who are married. An annulment declares there was never a marriage to begin with.
JoeShlabotnik said:
But this is my belief.
You and I have argued to point time and again.
I will NOT change my mind on the matter.
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You’re right, it’s your belief. But you’re basing your belief on something that is against what the Church says an annulment is.
 
LittleFlower378 said:
And is he saying that a husband should never take back an adulterous wife?
Or does he mean he should not take her back unless she repent?
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He is saying that if a man divorces a woman and she marries another, the first man cannot take her back. Once she has “been with” another man, that’s it. She can’t go back and he can’t take her back. Repentance doesn’t matter. Innocence doesn’t matter. The woman (and man) has to accept this harsh medicine (so to speak) for the benefit of her (and his) salvation.

He’s not saying here that the first marriage is invalid or something like that, just that it is wrong for the two to resume conjugal life, due to the woman’s “defilement.”

This permanent separation is not something that “the Church” requires, by the way. In fact, it is more the opposite–spouses are encouraged to resume conjugal life, even in cases of adultery.

Dan
 
Thank you, very good explanation. The offended spouse doesnt ever have to take back the adulterous spouse(is under no obligation), but is encouraged to by the Church if the adulterous spouse is truly repentant.
 
Your are splitting hairs.
When two people are married and live together as man and wife. And have children together. And do all the things that married people do, they are married.
This premise that there never was a marriage to begin with? :roll_eyes: Sorry, I am just not buying it.
By the way, historically speaking, the Church has said many things.
At one time, priest could be married. Then that was changed.
Now, we have ministers from other religions who are married, but convert to Catholicism and they are priests, but they are married.
Who knows what may happen in the future? We may one day all priests may be allowed to be married. We may one day have women priests.
Remember when it was a mortal sin to eat meat on all Fridays?
The Church is free to change back and forth about this or that.
I love the Catholic Church and if the Church wants to grant an annulment to those who have been married for years and years and years and years, I suppose they have the right to do that.
But I also believe that marriage is a sacred thing. It is a sacrament. We are joined together by God.
 
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