Can someone please explain "defect of form" as far as annulments go?

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Hey everyone. Can someone please explain what “defect of form” is as far as annulments go? How does one qualify for this type of annulment?
 
I have also posted a link at the end for you to get the source document of these points below.

Marriage invalidity due to the Defect of Form is established if:
1)
The officiating priest,deacon, or lay person
lacked the proper faculty or delegation
to witness the
exchange of marriage contract
.
2)
The properly delegated official
witness did not request and receive the consent of
the parties or received the consent of only one party while another minister
(undelegated Catholic or non​

Catholic minister) requests and receives the consent
of the other party
.
3)
The exchange of marriage vows was omitted altogether
in the course of the
marriage ceremony

dioceseofbaker.org/tribunal/MarriageNullityDueToTheDefectOfCanonicalForm.pdf

Please pray for me a sinner
 
Thank you Droning Mary.

Would a defect of form annulment be issued if a Catholic married someone else in a non-Catholic setting and not by a minister but instead by a friend?
 
Unless the friend who performed the marriage is a Catholic priest with faculties given by his bishop to perform the marriage - the marriage never existed and would be defect of form.

It is not always necessary to comply with the Catholic setting for the sacrament to be fulfilled…so the setting is not important …what is important, at least in regards to your question…Is the friend who performed the marriage ceremony a Catholic priest and if it was a priest did he have faculties given by his bishop? If the answer to one of both of these is No, there was no marriage and is defect of form.

(In my last post to you please understand that where it says the word ‘witness’ that refers to the priest — after all it is the bride and groom who perform the sacrament of marriage and the priest is the witness)
 
Catholics, lapsed or not, are required to be married within the Church or receive a dispensation to be married outside of the Church. If a catholic marries outside the Church and does not have dispensation the marriage is invalid and is a simple matter of paperwork. I believe they require a Baptism certificate to prove at least one party was Catholic at the time of the marriage, a marriage certificate to prove who performed the ceremony, and a divorce decree to prove eligibility to marry legally.
 
Droning_Mary said:
Unless the friend who performed the marriage is a Catholic priest with faculties given by his bishop to perform the marriage - the marriage never existed and would be defect of form.

It is not always necessary to comply with the Catholic setting for the sacrament to be fulfilled…so the setting is not important …what is important, at least in regards to your question…Is the friend who performed the marriage ceremony a Catholic priest and if it was a priest did he have faculties given by his bishop? If the answer to one of both of these is No, there was no marriage and is defect of form.

(In my last post to you please understand that where it says the word ‘witness’ that refers to the priest — after all it is the bride and groom who perform the sacrament of marriage and the priest is the witness)
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…or a deacon.
 
Holly3278 said:
Hey everyone. Can someone please explain what “defect of form” is as far as annulments go?
Click to expand...
A lack of form means a Catholic married someone else outside of the Catholic form of marriage without receiving a dispensation from their bishop to do so and the Catholic never applied for and receive a convalidation or radical sanation of the marriage.

A Catholic can marry a non-Catholic in a non-Catholic venue, but they must have a dispensation to do so along with a dispensation of “disparity of cult” if that person is not baptized and permission for mixed marriage if that person is baptized.

There is no requirement that the non-Catholic ceremony involve a minister. The wedding could be performed by anyone legally authorized to witness weddings.
Holly3278 said:
How does one qualify for this type of annulment?
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It isn’t actually a decree of nullity (annulment). It is a documentary case. This means the Catholic fills out some forms and includes their marriage certificate, divorce decree, and baptismal records to their parish priest who gives it to the tribunal. They process the paperwork, and that’s it.

There is no trial, no decree of nullity, because a marriage that lacks form has no presumption of validity. There is nothing to do but document the invalid attempted marriage, and this declares the party free to marry in the Church.

A person who has been married outside the Church should make an appointment with their pastor, who will help them complete all necessary paperwork.
 
Thank you everyone for your answers. My questions are all answered now. 🙂
 
1ke said:
A lack of form means a Catholic married someone else outside of the Catholic form of marriage without receiving a dispensation from their bishop to do so and the Catholic never applied for and receive a convalidation or radical sanation of the marriage.

A Catholic can marry a non-Catholic in a non-Catholic venue, but they must have a dispensation to do so along with a dispensation of “disparity of cult” if that person is not baptized and permission for mixed marriage if that person is baptized.

There is no requirement that the non-Catholic ceremony involve a minister. The wedding could be performed by anyone legally authorized to witness weddings.

It isn’t actually a decree of nullity (annulment). It is a documentary case. This means the Catholic fills out some forms and includes their marriage certificate, divorce decree, and baptismal records to their parish priest who gives it to the tribunal. They process the paperwork, and that’s it.

There is no trial, no decree of nullity, because a marriage that lacks form has no presumption of validity. There is nothing to do but document the invalid attempted marriage, and this declares the party free to marry in the Church.

A person who has been married outside the Church should make an appointment with their pastor, who will help them complete all necessary paperwork.
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Check me if I am wrong:

A lack of form or defect of form would be a little like when citizens marry who come from a country that has laws that require the citizen to marry according to the laws of their own country of citizenship, regardless of where they are when they marry, and the citizen had failed to do that.

While marriage performed outside the country between non-citizens would recognized, the marriages of the citizens who attempted to get married outside the country or to non-citizens without permission, in violation of their own nation’s laws, would not be considered married at all. After all, whether a marriage contract is valid depends on whether or not you observed the laws that were binding upon each of you at the time you married.

This is different than a contract entered into in seeming compliance with the law, but which had some lack in it that made it impossible to fulfill from the very start. To determine that a contract like that was never valid requires a good deal more investigation. That is more like what a decree of nullity is like, correct?
 
I have a question regarding whether or not this situation is “lack of form”

My ex husband and I were married in the Catholic Church.

On our marriage certificate, at least one of the official witness signatures was forged.

There was no one attending the wedding with that name let alone as official witness. I don’t know who singed the certificate, we assumed that someone in the Church, the priest or assistant who was to see to it, didn’t get it taken care of and signed the certificate with a name they THOUGHT belonged to one of the witnesses.

My ex and I used to joke that we were never really married because of that, but we thought it was probably just a joke.

There were many people who did witness the marriage, but none of them signed the certificate either.

So…were we truly married or not?
 
schaeffer said:
I have a question regarding whether or not this situation is “lack of form”

My ex husband and I were married in the Catholic Church.

On our marriage certificate, at least one of the official witness signatures was forged.

There was no one attending the wedding with that name let alone as official witness. I don’t know who singed the certificate, we assumed that someone in the Church, the priest or assistant who was to see to it, didn’t get it taken care of and signed the certificate with a name they THOUGHT belonged to one of the witnesses.

My ex and I used to joke that we were never really married because of that, but we thought it was probably just a joke.

There were many people who did witness the marriage, but none of them signed the certificate either.

So…were we truly married or not?
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What matters is what actually happened, not that it was properly logged in Church records.

For instance, our sons had the wrong birth date on their baptismal certificates. They are still baptised. The parish just had to make a note of the mistake on their records.
 
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