Can the annulment petitioner be the most guilty?

[MichaelPhillip]

I am going to petition my Catholic marriage that ended in a civil divorce 28 years ago.

When reviewing the application questions asked, I find that I was mostly at fault…

Is it rare for the petitioner submitting a petition of Annulment to be the primary guilty party?

In other words, I am the one that is admitting the cause for grounds on nullity, and I want this marriage to be null.

There are other issues involved concerning the respondent.

But is it valid to have the petitioner be the one that is admitting most of the fault and initiating the petition? Is this ok?

Also I am already remarried, does my current civil marriage have any bearing on the upcoming petition?

 

[Fr.Charles_Grondin]

For the purposes of the annulment it does not matter who was “at fault” for the lack of validity. All the tribunal is trying to figure out is if there is enough evidence to find that at the time the marriage vows were exchanged that an essential element of marriage was missing. It does not matter if it was the petitioner or the respondent who lacked one of those essentials.

Your current civil marriage does not really effect the annulment proceedings because the tribunal is only focused on what can be proven about someone’s ability to validly enter into marriage at the time of their marriage.