If someone would post here a binding moral teaching on this matter of guilt vs. right to applying for annulment, I’d be most grateful.
I can tell you how the legitimate law of the Catholic Church views it.
The 1917 code was abrogated and the American Procedural Norms were extinguished when the 1983 code was promulgated by the supreme authority of the Church, namely the Roman Pontiff, and not your friend. The Roman Pontiff, also known as the Supreme Pontiff, has chosen to state as law, that either party may ask for his or her marriage to be examined for invalidity. As some of us may recall, this same pontiff is the Vicar of Christ on earth, and his laws and teaching may be safely followed by the faithful. We who are in full communion with him observe his laws.
The new code places no requirement placed on the petitioning party in terms of guilt or innocence. It has completed re- ordered the entire question of who may petition for a decree of nullity. According to the norms of canon 10, this formally revokes the prior restrictions. The former law, through canon 1971 §1 and a number of decisions of the Committee for the Interpretation of the Code from the 1920s-40s, prevented non Catholics and those who caused the nullity from acting as petitioners. It prevented adulterers — but not the innocent party — from suing for canonical separation, which is not the same as a suit to determine the nullity of marriage.
As canon 1058 says, “All persons who are not prohibited by law can contract marriage.” This is considered to be a right which arises from divine law.
The question then becomes whether or not the prior marriage existed as a valid marriage so that it would prevent a subsequent marriage.
To this end, a member of the Christian faithful has the right to know whether or not that marriage was valid. We have a natural right to know our status in the Church, because we must know it in order to know our rights and duties and then exercise them. For example, with only limited exceptions, married people have the duty to persevere in conjugal living. If a marriage was not a valid one, though, the parties do not have that obligation.
Consequently they have the right to ask a competent Church court to determine that. Canon 221 thus reads in part, “§1. The Christian faithful can legitimately vindicate and defend the rights which they possess in the Church in the competent ecclesiastical forum according to the norm of law.”
Therefore, canon 1674 presents the right to challenge a marriage, “The following are qualified to challenge [impugnandum] a marriage: 1º the spouses; 2º the promotor of justice when nullity has already become public, if the convalidation of the marriage is not possible or expedient.” This acknowledges the essential dignity of the human person, just as canon 1476 does, which permits the non baptized to bring a cause to trial.
A friend is giving me the boot because he believes strongly that my application for an annulment, in part based on my “guilt”, is morally wrong and has declared me unsafe to be around. I have not been able to prove through binding Catholic teaching that I am correct in this. I have moral certitude that my marriage is invalid, due to both of us, not just me, and I think that will be proven through my witnesses’ testimony. I do not see how my petition is immoral.
I do not see that it is immoral to exercise a divine right to seek justice in the Church. This person seems to be more rigorous than the Church, in which the supreme law is the salvation of souls (canon 1752).
The reasons for the invalidity of a marriage are not based on questions of moral guilt. If they were, the Church would view adultery as a reason for declaring a marriage invalid, and it never has, nor will it. In a nullity case, the tribunal will sift the true difference between failures in the moral realm and the causes for nullity which are recognized in law.
:yup: