Cardinal Burke: Change in Annulment Process Could Cause ‘Grave Damage’

[Tantum_ergo]

The question was: “Would you work for nothing?” and the answer is “Yes, I do all the time”. And there is absolutely no way possible I would ever equate a pastoral need/function with a product and the church as a place of business. I stand by my response.

Thing is, nobody is DENIED the procedure due to ‘failure to pay’. If the person cannot pay, he or she is not ‘charged’. Of course, that means that the rest of us in parishes, dioceses, etc are supporting these cases through our gifts to charity.

But let’s be fair. The church, like it or not, doesn’t function on air. Your local parish church needs fuel, and probably your parish members don’t knock on Father’s door and say, “We’ve just paid your heating bills for the year”. . .Your choir doesn’t get its music for free --at some point, somebody BOUGHT hymnals. The sodality might do altar linens ‘gratis’ but at some point, somebody BOUGHT those linens. . .

Please tell me how people who make their living (after spending years going to school for the appropriate degree) working for the church as say canon lawyers should spend hours involved in research, and in arranging to ‘type’ what they find, and then have a court case with others regarding such, should be told, “hey, you should be doing all of this FOR FREE because the Church shouldn’t have to CHARGE people for your work” .

 

[CarolNoel]

You are not being either rational or fair on this. By necessity, the tribunal system involves canon lawyers to sort out, comprehend and evaluate petitions. These guys are as highly educated and trained as civil lawyers are. If a diocese has hundreds of hours worth of canon lawyer work that needs to be done and they don’t have canon lawyers lined up in droves to volunteer for free what are they supposed to do? Your post suggests that they should eat those costs out of the general diocesan budget, which functionally means EVERYBODY pays for it. The current policy is that those wishing to utilize the services of these professionals have to pay for it (or more likely a small portion of it). Hardly unfair or exploitive.

The problem is that catholics are largely spoiled and have come to expect the Church to be “sugar-Momma” for their needs. As if the faithful is “doing God and the Church a favor” by petitioning for an annulment. Just the other day I posted in a thread where the OP was exceedingly angry with the church for how expensive her kids catholic high school education was. The underlying attitude was that some magic donor somewhere should be responsible for bearing the costs of the services she wanted. I suppose it’s the American way nowadays…

Very well stated, and I totally agree. Don’t understand why some believe they should not pay anything in regards to the Church.

 

[Corki]

I agree. Also, folks should not have to pay for this process. Sorry, but why should there be money involved in it at all.

In cases of abuse, cheating, and other violence I see no reason for annulments to drag out and to cost the parties involved money.

Who should pay for it?

There will be a cost one way or the other. Should the couple who seeks to benefit from the tribunal investigation pay or should the money come out of some other fund? What would you cut?

 

[JimG]

In cases of abuse, cheating, and other violence I see no reason for annulments to drag out and to cost the parties involved money.

While abuse, cheating, and violence, may certainly be grounds for separation and civil divorce, they do not necessarily prove that the marriage was null from the beginning.