Has Catholocism watered down marriage?

[Polluted]

Is marriage in Roman Catholicism not what it used to be? I mean even bishops have criticized the tribunals at times for their…sometimes liberal amounts of anulments granted.

I don’t know, I love Catholocism and am a convert. It’s a beautiful faith, but this is the one issue where I kind of roll my eyes and struggle with the modern Church’s stance on granting an annulment. I can’t even IMAGINE what it must be like for someone who has had a 25+ year marriage . …only to be thrown at the tribunals looking every which way for a spiritual loop hole (at least from my eyes).

How is this possible ? If marriage is this beautiful sacrament that can not be broken…how can a 25 year marriage that has produced children, or even been completed inside of a Catholic Church be declared null?

It’s sick, it makes me sick. It screams corruption. Please help me make peace with this. I mean, at what point is someone simply paying the fee, answering all the questions correctly to the point where an actual marriage is wrongly nullified

Do the tribunals have infallibility? Obviously that’s only the pope AT TIMES when statements are executed as such but I can’t help but wonder how many true marriages were falsely declared invalid.

What about King Henry the VIII. Is it possible that the Anglican Church would not even exist had he tried to get an annulment in 2015 on American soil?

I also think about abuse. It’s terrible. Obviously someone should not have to tolerate that and I can understand why someone would want to seek a healthy not abusive relationship. I have an aunt who actually was in this senario. She was very abused by her husband and they were Catholic. The priest at the time said she was indeed married, however when she got a new priest he helped her “take care of it”. She herself told me that with enough $$$ one can often (not always) get an annulment.

It might suck, but why does no one seem to defend marriage on this equation. Forget self identified homosexuals. This should be issue number #1 in terms of protecting marriage. Homosexuals can never be unified by God, no matter what congress says but 2 rightfully married Catholics can! Why aren’t people discussing this? Why does Catholic Radio host entire shows that are hours long talking about how beautiful the anulment process is?

Beautiful annulment ? Are you serious? Even if it is a Valid anulment how can that be beautiful. It means 2 people were living in sin, probably partaking in the body and blood of Christ in such a state for YEARS. Where is the beauty? How can ANY Catholic preach against any homosexual and tell them to be chaste when we can’t even do it inside our own Church! Nobody whants to hear that unless they agree to Chastity…like a priest. But nobody accepts such a cross (not having sex) if they are in a bad legitimate marriage. Instead they just “Get an annulment”!

I not buying it.

 

[Joie_de_Vivre]

The Catholic Church in the US did a poor job of preparing people for marriage for many years, consequently there are a lot of null marriages. More recently however the Church in the US has done a far better job of marriage prep and consequently annulments have been declining since the mid 1980s (well, that and fewer Catholics getting married).

A marriage doesn’t become null, it was that way from the beginning and sometimes the marriage is found to be quite valid and which often pisses people off. If a marriage was null and the spouses were under the impression that it was valid even if they were engaging in sex they didn’t sin because of the marriage being invalid.

 

[Xantippe]

Is marriage in Roman Catholicism not what it used to be? I mean even bishops have criticized the tribunals at times for their…sometimes liberal amounts of anulments granted.

I don’t know, I love Catholocism and am a convert. It’s a beautiful faith, but this is the one issue where I kind of roll my eyes and struggle with the modern Church’s stance on granting an annulment. I can’t even IMAGINE what it must be like for someone who has had a 25+ year marriage . …only to be thrown at the tribunals looking every which way for a spiritual loop hole (at least from my eyes).

How is this possible ? If marriage is this beautiful sacrament that can not be broken…how can a 25 year marriage that has produced children, or even been completed inside of a Catholic Church be declared null?

It’s sick, it makes me sick. It screams corruption. Please help me make peace with this. I mean, at what point is someone simply paying the fee, answering all the questions correctly to the point where an actual marriage is wrongly nullified

Do the tribunals have infallibility? Obviously that’s only the pope AT TIMES when statements are executed as such but I can’t help but wonder how many true marriages were falsely declared invalid.

What about King Henry the VIII. Is it possible that the Anglican Church would not even exist had he tried to get an annulment in 2015 on American soil?

I also think about abuse. It’s terrible. Obviously someone should not have to tolerate that and I can understand why someone would want to seek a healthy not abusive relationship. I have an aunt who actually was in this senario. She was very abused by her husband and they were Catholic. The priest at the time said she was indeed married, however when she got a new priest he helped her “take care of it”. She herself told me that with enough $$$ one can often (not always) get an annulment.

It might suck, but why does no one seem to defend marriage on this equation. Forget self identified homosexuals. This should be issue number #1 in terms of protecting marriage. Homosexuals can never be unified by God, no matter what congress says but 2 rightfully married Catholics can! Why aren’t people discussing this? Why does Catholic Radio host entire shows that are hours long talking about how beautiful the anulment process is?

Beautiful annulment ? Are you serious? Even if it is a Valid anulment how can that be beautiful. It means 2 people were living in sin, probably partaking in the body and blood of Christ in such a state for YEARS. Where is the beauty? How can ANY Catholic preach against any homosexual and tell them to be chaste when we can’t even do it inside our own Church! Nobody whants to hear that unless they agree to Chastity…like a priest. But nobody accepts such a cross (not having sex) if they are in a bad legitimate marriage. Instead they just “Get an annulment”!

I not buying it.

1. If annulments were just a money-making venture, the costs would be much higher, there would be way more of them and there wouldn’t be so much hand-wringing over the synod on the family. We’d just run 'em all through the tribunals, cash the checks, and call it a day.
2. Annulment tribunals aren’t infallible. But, just as there probably have been valid marriages declared invalid, there have undoubtedly been a lot of errors in the opposite direction in the past. Just for example, there are a lot of people who have accidentally wound up with spouses that weren’t attracted to their sex and (up to the present day) they wouldn’t have been able to get an annulment if the marriage was consummated.
3. Henry VIII probably could have gotten an annulment today, but not on the grounds that he presented. The guy attempted marriage six times and executed countless people (including many who had been very close to him)–he had a few screws loose.
4. So, you think that people are getting annulments for nothing, but you also think that the system is unfair to victims of abuse? And you present your aunt, who was abused and got an annulment, as an example of the abuse of the annulment system?
5. I think some CAFers are occasionally naive about annulments, but I think that that is almost always in the direction of believing (falsely) that annulments are to be had for the asking. (It’s often non-Catholics on CAF that make that mistake, but also some Catholics.)

What I often say about divorce in those unhappy marriage threads is that my test is–is this situation bad enough that you would be content never to marry again after you left? A lot of people can honestly say yes to that. And, as a matter of fact, a lot of those people have very good annulment grounds.

 

[Vic_Taltrees_UK]

By watering down baptism and the Eucharist (by not enough post-baptismal catechesis), the Church has watered down marriage (a bit).

 

[seagal]

Catholic teaching on marriage is the same as it ever was. A marriage is for life, end of story. A marriage that was not validly contracted is not a marriage and can be annulled. The fact that there are more annulments is not the fault of the doctrine. It is either the fault of poorly taught laypersons, or of poorly taught priests, or some combination of the two. But the fact that a doctrine is not properly followed is not proof that the doctrine is a bad one. The Catholic Church is the only church that actually follows Jesus’ command to “let no man put asunder”. Every other Christian church allows divorce. (And no, an annulment is not a Catholic divorce.)

 

[nodito]

Beautiful annulment ? Are you serious? Even if it is a Valid anulment how can that be beautiful. It means 2 people were living in sin, probably partaking in the body and blood of Christ in such a state for YEARS. Where is the beauty?

I’ll leave others to address the meat of your post, but I wanted to touch on this point. When an annulment is granted, it means the marriage was not valid, but it does NOT mean that the couple had been living in sin for years. Most people who enter in to invalid marriages do so in good faith; they don’t realize what the Church teaches about marriage or the necessary form, or they don’t realize that they or their partner was lacking in something necessary for marriage. Sin requires consent; you cannot sin by accident or by what someone else does, and so the Church does NOT say that those who have received an annulment were living in sin, even if they were presumably engaging in marital intercourse with someone who was not a valid spouse.

There can be beauty in the annulment process. It can be freeing and healing for a person who has been abandoned or abused by their spouse to realize that their union was not a sacramental or valid marriage, as they had maybe previously supposed. There is beauty in relieving unwarranted guilt from guiltless parties. There is beauty in TRUTH and when the truth comes out, even when that truth is that the person had been in an invalid marriage, we are the better for it.

God bless.

 

[Polluted]

Catholic teaching on marriage is the same as it ever was. A marriage is for life, end of story. A marriage that was not validly contracted is not a marriage and can be annulled. The fact that there are more annulments is not the fault of the doctrine. It is either the fault of poorly taught laypersons, or of poorly taught priests, or some combination of the two. But the fact that a doctrine is not properly followed is not proof that the doctrine is a bad one. The Catholic Church is the only church that actually follows Jesus’ command to “let no man put asunder”. Every other Christian church allows divorce. (And no, an annulment is not a Catholic divorce.)

Ya, and while that’s inspiring and a beautiful notion…I think you are gonna have to address some of the points in this thread as I feel they are valid. When even our own bishops have criticized the process and end result, it’s not gonna hurt to have a second look

 

[Xantippe]

Ya, and while that’s inspiring and a beautiful notion…I think you are gonna have to address some of the points in this thread as I feel they are valid. When even our own bishops have criticized the process and end result, it’s not gonna hurt to have a second look

There are a heck of a lot of Catholic bishops.

There are in excess of 5,000 bishops in the Catholic Church.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bishop_(Catholic_Church

They’re not each infallible in isolation.

 

[Padres1969]

By watering down baptism and the Eucharist (by not enough post-baptismal catechesis), the Church has watered down marriage (a bit).

Heck I’d argue the Catholic Church isn’t doing enough catechesis, period, these days. Can’t speak for other’s Catholic schooling experience. But after 9 years of Catholic primary, 4 years of Jesuit Catholic secondary, and 4 years of Jesuit Catholic university education I learned more about the Catholic Catechism, Canon Law, social positions, etc… on my own than I ever did in prep for Reconciliation, Eucharist, and Confirmation. The latter being the most disturbing for me in that I view Confirmation as being done far too young when I was being pushed through it (Freshman year of High School), and as I understand it now it’s being done even younger (which it having reverted back to at least junior high in the diocese I was a member in, and younger still in other diocese).

Rushing someone through the sacraments like that and then not teaching them the beliefs that go along with it is seriously watering down the faith.

 

[thistle]

The Catholic Church in the US did a poor job of preparing people for marriage for many years, consequently there are a lot of null marriages. More recently however the Church in the US has done a far better job of marriage prep and consequently annulments have been declining since the mid 1980s (well, that and fewer Catholics getting married).

A marriage doesn’t become null, it was that way from the beginning and sometimes the marriage is found to be quite valid and which often pisses people off. If a marriage was null and the spouses were under the impression that it was valid even if they were engaging in sex they didn’t sin because of the marriage being invalid.

It seems like something has not been right in the US. I read statistics that of all global annulments the US accounted for 85% of them while only having 6% of global Catholics.

 

[Xantippe]

It seems like something has not been right in the US. I read statistics that of all global annulments the US accounted for 85% of them while only having 6% of global Catholics.

One also hears of annulments taking 10 years in many places outside the US. That also isn’t right, as it gets harder to produce witnesses and evidence the more time goes by. Also, it’s not fair to ask somebody that isn’t actually married to put their life on hold for ten years.