Marriage, annulment, validity, and Schrodinger's cat

[YADA]

No. The Tribunal only determines whether the marriage was VALID. If it was valid it may or may not be sacramental.

And I do not disagree … that’s one problem with attempting to address an issue and write in a shorthand … on a forum

there are lots of nuances and technical language … I was trying to address the issue around the ‘certainty’ of Sacramental … not the many variations of marriage contracts and validity … because ultimately - if the marriage was not valid - its not Sacramental - from the beginning …the issue the OP is struggling with

 

[Tomdstone]

No marriage is known with certainty to be valid since error, deceit, or simulation could be present.

In recent years, there have been as many as 60,000 marriage annulments per year. How many of those marriages were invalid due to “error, deceit, or simulation”?

 

[Tomdstone]

It was my understanding that the validity of a marriage has to do with the situation at the time of the marriage. Not after.

This is perhaps what Cardinal Kasper was talking about when he spoke about a hypothetical case where a person is married for a certain length of time, and then decides he wants out of the marriage. He seeks an annulment, but Cardinal Kasper raises the possibility of an annulment being a dishonest Catholic divorce.
americamagazine.org/content/all-things/cardinal-kasper-some-fear-domino-effect-synod-family

 

[Tomdstone]

If a marriage is found to be invalid, that means it was invalid from the start. It was always invalid and the couple were having relations while not in a valid marriage.

IMHO, you are 100% correct.

 

[Vico]

In recent years, there have been as many as 60,000 marriage annulments per year. How many of those marriages were invalid due to “error, deceit, or simulation”?

Do you want to expand the list of grounds? That was a simplification.

There was a statistic from 1991 of 60,000 annulments, yet it was not reported that 92% are overturned by the Roman Rota.

Ref: fathersofmercy.com/news/fr-chuck-zmudzinski-annulments/

 

[YADA]

In recent years, there have been as many as 60,000 marriage annulments per year. How many of those marriages were invalid due to “error, deceit, or simulation”?

a better question is how many of those divorces were contracted between two Catholics …

One problem with using overall annulment numbers is it does not account for how many of those marriages submitted for review were contracted between two non-Catholic Christians, two non-Christians, a non-Christian and a non-Catholic Christian, a non-Catholic Christian and a Catholic, a Catholic and a non-Christian and between two Catholics …

Was the Catholic party [if one was Catholic] actively practicing their faith before they sought the Catholic wedding - or did that ‘bring them back’ …

And even better analysis would break down the non-Catholic Christian by denomination [and whether the person was practicing or not practicing their faith at the time of the marriage]

and even better would be a break down on the non-Christians - Atheist, Buddhist, Jewish, Hindu, Moslem, etc. … and how many of the religious affiliated non-Christians were practicing …

How many of those marriages were performed in the Catholic Church - or other religious services and how many were Justice of the Peace, Courthouse or Uncle Harry who got his license t perform the marriage ceremony for the state on line the week before the ceremony by simply filling out an application and paying the fee.

Quoting this stat of 60,000 annulments per year is meaningless unless you know what the make-up of the stats are …

And many of the annulments that come before a tribunal are for marriages where the Catholic Church was not involved - in any way shape or form until the application for a investigation is requested.

 

[Vico]

If a marriage is found to be invalid, that means it was invalid from the start. It was always invalid and the couple were having relations while not in a valid marriage. Is any of this not true? I know that there are a lot of “buts”, “howevers” and “practically’s”. Yet isn’t the above statement true (and the source of the OP’s conundrum)?

All that is true, yet it may have been putative. The fact that it was found to be invalid does not make it automatically sinful.Canon 1061.3 An invalid marriage is said to be putative if it has been celebrated in good faith by at least one party. It ceases to be such when both parties become certain of its nullity.

 

[pnewton]

All that is true, yet it may have been putative. The fact that it was found to be invalid does not make it automatically sinful.

I know this, and have always added that caveat.

 

[Tomdstone]

Do you want to expand the list of grounds? That was a simplification.

There was a statistic from 1991 of 60,000 annulments, yet it was not reported that 92% are overturned by the Roman Rota.

Ref: fathersofmercy.com/news/fr-chuck-zmudzinski-annulments/

The 92% statistic applies to marriage cases from America that were reviewed by the Roman Rota over a ten year period in the 1980’s and 1990’s. The quote is:
“…The percentage of marriages declared invalid by an American Tribunal but reversed by the Roman Rota. In his book, The Annulment Crisis in American Catholicism, Sociology Professor Robert Vasoli analyzed two studies of marriage cases from America that were reviewed by the Roman Rota over a ten year period in the 1980’s and 1990’s. His analysis reveals what he called a “stunning” 92 percent reversal rate.”
fathersofmercy.com/news/fr-chuck-zmudzinski-annulments/

 

[Tomdstone]

a better question is how many of those divorces were contracted between two Catholics …

One problem with using overall annulment numbers is it does not account for how many of those marriages submitted for review were contracted between two non-Catholic Christians, two non-Christians, a non-Christian and a non-Catholic Christian, a non-Catholic Christian and a Catholic, a Catholic and a non-Christian and between two Catholics …

Was the Catholic party [if one was Catholic] actively practicing their faith before they sought the Catholic wedding - or did that ‘bring them back’ …

And even better analysis would break down the non-Catholic Christian by denomination [and whether the person was practicing or not practicing their faith at the time of the marriage]

and even better would be a break down on the non-Christians - Atheist, Buddhist, Jewish, Hindu, Moslem, etc. … and how many of the religious affiliated non-Christians were practicing …

How many of those marriages were performed in the Catholic Church - or other religious services and how many were Justice of the Peace, Courthouse or Uncle Harry who got his license t perform the marriage ceremony for the state on line the week before the ceremony by simply filling out an application and paying the fee.

Quoting this stat of 60,000 annulments per year is meaningless unless you know what the make-up of the stats are …

And many of the annulments that come before a tribunal are for marriages where the Catholic Church was not involved - in any way shape or form until the application for a investigation is requested.

Did American Catholics marry non-Catholics in 1929 or 1930?
10 marriage annulments per year then, compared with more than 30,000 per year today.
That is a rather large increase, is it not?
Compare that with the number of marital breakups in American Protestant Churches during the same period.

 

[YADA]

Did American Catholics marry non-Catholics in 1929 or 1930?
10 marriage annulments per year then, compared with more than 30,000 per year today.
That is a rather large increase, is it not?
Compare that with the number of marital breakups in American Protestant Churches during the same period.

While I am sure some Catholics and Non-Catholics married in 1929 and 1930 - I doubt that the rates were as high as today …

My guess is practically zero marriages were submitted before a Tribunal where both parties were non-Catholic in 1929 … and probably remained that way until the 1960s plus … and how nice of you to ignore that many of the annulments are for marriages that were not between any Catholic person and did not involve a Priest nor the Church …

Also - though addiction and fornication are as old as mankind - since the 1960s drug and sexual revolution - Drugs and sex out of wedlock happen at drastic rates …

We live in a world where society and many people in it believe that 12 year olds can and should have access to contraceptives in order to ‘responsibly engage in safe sex’ … Abortion and out of wedlock births are at astronomical rates - far higher then 1929 & 1930

Divorce rates are far higher …

Many active practicing Catholics co-habitate and practice artificial birth control … when they marry - how hard is it to find the chink in the vows? Not very … is that the fault of the Tribunal? Is it the fault of the couple? The Priest who performed the wedding? The parents of the couple?

Today burglars have sued [and won judgments] the victims of their crimes for injures they sustain in the commission of criminal actions - like falling through a skylight while using the skylight to illegally enter the premises in order to steal …and you wonder about people thinking about seeking a decision form a church tribunal …

We should worry about the breakdown of marriages and try to find the cause and work to eliminate that cause.

We need to encourage young people to grow up and mature … instead we are expanding childhood into the 20s … after all you can be on your parents health care until 26 now …

Young people live together but do not accept responsibility - they engage in sex with contraceptive help, abort if it fails and take their time ‘finding themselves’ they do not need to marry - has that increased marital stability - No …

The real issue is the breakdown of the American Family - and general moral decay …

Do people mature and grow up - they can - sadly - these lessons and personal growth often come with divorce and the wake of destruction it leaves in its path

 

[Phemie]

Do you want to expand the list of grounds? That was a simplification.

There was a statistic from 1991 of 60,000 annulments, yet it was not reported that 92% are overturned by the Roman Rota.

Ref: fathersofmercy.com/news/fr-chuck-zmudzinski-annulments/

That would be 92% of those that are appealed to the Roman Rota. That could be as few as 25 appealed with 2 not overturned. Without all the numbers, percentages mean nothing. What is encouraging is that people actually care enough to petition for a decree of nullity. Considering the divorce rate for Catholics is pretty much equal to that of the rest of the population, I would be happy to see more petitions, not fewer.

 

[Tomdstone]

While I am sure some Catholics and Non-Catholics married in 1929 and 1930 - I doubt that the rates were as high as today …

If the discussion is about Catholics marrying Non-Catholics, we might want to look at some examples. In one famous example in the news where a Protestant married a Catholic, it was the Catholic who wanted the annulment and the Protestant fought to stop the Catholic Church from giving the annulment which she thought was unfair. She also did not like the explanation that her Catholic husband gave for the annulment process. She wrote a book about it. Sheila Rauch Kennedy says in her book: “Shattered Faith: A Woman’s Struggle to Stop the Catholic Church from Annulling Her Marriage (Pantheon)” that her Catholic husband Joe Kennedy explained the annulment process as Catholic gobbledygook and added that “nobody actually believes it.”
firstthings.com/article/1997/10/002-catholic-gobbledygook

 

[Vico]

That would be 92% of those that are appealed to the Roman Rota. That could be as few as 25 appealed with 2 not overturned. Without all the numbers, percentages mean nothing. What is encouraging is that people actually care enough to petition for a decree of nullity. Considering the divorce rate for Catholics is pretty much equal to that of the rest of the population, I would be happy to see more petitions, not fewer.

Yes 92% of just the appeals.

Msgr. Rick Hilgartner, (US Secretariat of Divine Worship), said that the US has more frequent conversions to Catholicism than in Europe, so many annulment cases come about as part of RICA for those being baptized or received into full communion.

 

[Sophie_Lawrence]

While the Church has played footsie with the media over the synod on the families, these are the questions that need answered.

And the Church is going to have to address and soon, the reality that state sanctioned marriages will not be able to be the norm in which the Church operates anymore. She has had the luxury of 2000 years of marriage being essentially the same. But now, while the state has decided to sanction other unions the Church will be addressed with questions like these, Will a person who was in a SSM be required to get an annulment before marrying the opposite sex in the Catholic Church? Many diocese have always stated that if the state marries two people the Church presumes validity. That is going to have to be re done now. There is an inconsistency here and in the quest for mercy we must remember that sometimes education and suffering is merciful.

But again, why would we enter into a sacrament that had no assurance? Odd.

But again, we hear from the homosexual movements (what does it harm your marriage?) Or of the adulterers or divorce and remarried and remarried and remarried. How does it harm you? Well the answer is that we now have no way of knowing if our own marriages are indeed valid. What other sacrament is like that? Do we walk out of the confessional thinking that if in 20 years the priest had a change of heart that we could be drug back into a tribunal for our confession? Or do we have to wonder if our baptism is null? Or our priesthood? How about the Eucharist? Is it also only “presumed” valid, or do we believe it is the body and blood of God Himself?

Just to touch on a few things:

Homosexual marriage exists only in civil law. The Church holds that marriage between two of the same sex to be impossible. There will not be any annulments for couples in that scenario, similarly there would be no annulments for couples who live together.

A confession can be invalid. An example is a person withholds a mortal sin, on purpose. The priest gives absolution. The penitent is not absolved because they purposefully withheld a mortal sin. This same person could make a lifetime of confessions, always purposefully withholding a mortal sin and none of these confessions would be considered a be a valid sacrament.

There could be examples of the Eucharist being given and not valid. If someone played a hoax and switched to hosts to hosts made of rice flour instead of wheat, or the sacramental wine to some other alcohol not made from grapes, or to just plain grape juice, the sacrament would not be valid.

A number of years ago there was a news story of a young girl with celiac disease who was supposed to receive a special host for her first communion. The parish was supplied erroneously with a type of host that was not considered licit. The child’s family was informed and she needed to repeat the Sacrament with the correct type of host.

 

[YADA]

If the discussion is about Catholics marrying Non-Catholics, we might want to look at some examples. In one famous example in the news where a Protestant married a Catholic, it was the Catholic who wanted the annulment and the Protestant fought to stop the Catholic Church from giving the annulment which she thought was unfair. She also did not like the explanation that her Catholic husband gave for the annulment process. She wrote a book about it. Sheila Rauch Kennedy says in her book: “Shattered Faith: A Woman’s Struggle to Stop the Catholic Church from Annulling Her Marriage (Pantheon)” that her Catholic husband Joe Kennedy explained the annulment process as Catholic gobbledygook and added that “nobody actually believes it.”
firstthings.com/article/1997/10/002-catholic-gobbledygook

Yes I am well aware of the “Shattered Faith: A Woman’s Struggle to Stop the Catholic Church from Annulling Her Marriage (Pantheon)” and the overturn of the Rota … I also know that she is the one who filed for divorce rather then stay legally civilly married - thus she was the one who even opened that door to make an annulment application possible. As far as the Kennedy’s go - they are not a stronghold public example of faithful Catholocism - as even Ms Rauch Kennedy’s son is Pro-Choice and for Gay marriage … views I am sure he found in is home life … so much for marriage and Christian values

I personally know of a Lutheran gentleman who was married to a Lutheran in a Lutheran Church and ceremony … who later divorced … when that marriage was submitted for review - our Archdiocesan Tribunal found the marriage valid and sacramental - no positive annulment decision was made … its the facts presented in individual cases that matter to Tribunals.

I thought the discussion was about annulments … you threw out 60,000 as a number - like those are all Catholic/Catholic marriages … **my point **- which you never acknowledge - is that many of those marriages being reviewed took place totally outside of a Catholic Context … they did not involve **any **Catholic - not as one of the two being married, not a priest, not a Catholic Marriage Preparation course nor a Catholic ceremony… Not one aspect of the marriage which has ended in divorce being presented to the Tribunal was Catholic …

So - to be perfectly clear - what you are saying is that you are surprised that the marriage between an atheist and a non-practicing Christian performed by a Justice of the Peace that ended in divorce and years later comes before Catholic Tribunal would be found not to be a Sacramental marriage …

The 60,000 number - without much greater details as I noted in a previous post - really is meaningless …

The real problem is not the number of annulments - the real problem is the breakdown of the moral fiber of the country that is responsible for the breakdown of the family which leads to divorce n the first place … co-habitation before marriage, birth control/abortion, etc … is it any wonder that people are found to enter into marriage with defective understanding of the Sacramental nature of marriage? And which leads to affirmative annulment decisions?

 

[Vico]

I know this, and have always added that caveat.

I applaud that.

There is the element of uncertainty when speaking objectively because of the unknown. So we speak theoretically. Coming up with something practical is difficult.

So also are the cases of marriages that were annulled and then later nullity is overturned, which may occur a decade later.

 

[Tomdstone]

… Ms Rauch Kennedy’s son is Pro-Choice and for Gay marriage … views I am sure he found in is home life … so much for marriage and Christian values…

Why is this relevant to the topic of Marriage, annulment, validity, and Schrodinger’s cat? Ms. Rauch Kennedy believes that she was treated unfairly by the Catholic annulment process. Why are you bringing the views of her son into this discussion?

 

[MJJean]

Can anyone answer if their marriage is valid? How would you know?

Mine’s not, but then I civilly married after a divorce to a Baptized catholic who had fallen away. We’re doubly invalid, so to speak.

For most people? Well, it depends on their ability to understand and fulfill the duties and obligations of marriage as understood by the Church and their intentions at the time they married.

The problem with validity is that it only takes one of the two spouses to invalidate a marriage. If one of the spouses has some defect on their part, that’s it, game over. Invalid marriage. So, no one really ever truly knows if their marriage is valid while still married simply because there could have been an unspoken defect on the part of their spouse. It’s a matter of trust.

In recent years, there have been as many as 60,000 marriage annulments per year. How many of those marriages were invalid due to “error, deceit, or simulation”?

I’d imagine most of them. Again, the majority of annulments are for non-catholic marriages. Approximately 24% of catholics have been divorced and approximately only 15% of those seek annulment. That’s only a portion of the annulments granted each year.

One of the grounds of my annulment is simulation. My ex is an unbaptized Pagan and I was a Baptized, but non-practicing Protestant who was into Paganism at the time. Neither of us believed marriage to be permanent or that fidelity and openness to children was required. Obviously, we didn’t have a valid marriage. Most non-catholics don’t believe marriage is for life and cannot be dissolved by civil divorce. So, of course there are a lot of simulated marriages out there.

The 92% statistic applies to marriage cases from America that were reviewed by the Roman Rota over a ten year period in the 1980’s and 1990’s. The quote is:
“…The percentage of marriages declared invalid by an American Tribunal but reversed by the Roman Rota. In his book, The Annulment Crisis in American Catholicism, Sociology Professor Robert Vasoli analyzed two studies of marriage cases from America that were reviewed by the Roman Rota over a ten year period in the 1980’s and 1990’s. His analysis reveals what he called a “stunning” 92 percent reversal rate.”
fathersofmercy.com/news/fr-chuck-zmudzinski-annulments/

Again, the cases that make it to the Rota are those that are being appealed and are already on shaky ground. The actual number of marriage cases from the US reviewed by the Rota is between 10-25 each year. The “reversal” rate of marriage cases under appeal to the Rota being 92% is not stunning at all. These cases are NOT an example of a typical American annulment. They are the exception, not the rule. Hardly a representative sample.

 

[pnewton]

Man, I tried to type this post last night that evaporated when I tried to post it. It was a long and convoluted situation I was going to present as a thought experiment, but the CAF goblins got to it. Let me try again.

A person is in their third marriage. She wants to join the Catholic Church with her husband (I just have to give some gender here, nothing personal). In order to do so, she applies for an annulment for her previous marriages. For the first marriage, there is a presumption of validity. For the second marriage, there is a presumption of validity, despite the fact it is a logically impossibility that both are valid. Yet for the third marriage, there is a presumption of invalidity, as they are not able to be received into full communion because of being in an invalid marriage. However, other than to accommodate canon law, there is no logical reason to assume the second marriage is valid and the third is not. There is a practical reason to procede this way. It might be argued there is a pastoral reason to do the opposite though.

Now if this same couple know their third marriage to be valid, they still must wait until the Church makes this determination. Can they know this? Sometimes they can, at least with all the certainty that one can know anything. Let us say the first marriage was contracted with a one year pre-nuptial, and after a year they mutually agreed to dissolve the marriage. That is certainly not valid marriage. Let us say the second was an open marriage where both parties were unfaithful by common agreement, full knowledge and sometimes involved “swinging”. That is with certainty not valid. Then the woman had a spiritual conversion and married in a Church wedding.

Now when one considers the objective realities, there is no state of sin. The woman was married with the full blessing of her pastor who considers this part of her conversion, so there is not subjective sin.

In this case, there is nothing doctrinally that would prevent them from joining the Church and receiving communion. The practicality of the matter can be debated, but it is no contradiction of any doctrine.