Pre-Nuptual agreements and Annulment process

[veilofveronica]

Hi there,

It really isn’t necessary. When you give your vows during the Sacrament of Marriage, you are already pledging all of these things, and this gives witness to the fact that it was a valid marriage. The only way that the marriage can be anuled is if there is sufficient proof that something occured that rendered the marriage invalid in the first place. The Church is already tightening the reigns on the anulment protocol.

I’m currently engaged (getting married in May) and my fiance and I had to go through extensive Pre-Cana. We had our initial interview last February 2011. We initially wanted to get married in October 2011, but the Pastor recommended we have more time together first. We had several meetings with him and went through the Pre-Cana interview process. We also attended Marriage Preparation courses this past October. The Pre-Cana process IS all on record, so if for some reason we attempted to get an anulment, that record would be there and the priest could declare that there was not a valid reason for us to have the marriage anuled (not that that will ever happen!)

A written document would really just be a moot point or added “insurance”, which is not necessary in the Catholic Sacrament of Marriage. Yes, sadly, many people come to the Church asking for Marriage with a skewed understanding of what marriage is, but the process of preparation and the Sacrament itself render the marriage permanent in the eyes of the Church and the Lord, unless there was some grave reason that would render the Marriage void.

Personally, I feel that filling out such a paper would be like a secular pre-nup…almost making the assumption that the couple may try to get an anulment later. A “just in case” if you will, an insurance. A couple that seems that shaky should not be granted permission to marry in the first place.

God Bless.

 

[chevalier]

Love is an art, not a science…

So are forensics!

 

[rainbow1]

So are forensics!

hahaha…
I was just trying to say it is awfully difficult to distill and disect something as large as a holy marriage into technical pieces to “make sure” people understand it before marriage. Same thing as God…there is a beauty to never quite being able to understand what He is all about…what He is up to, etc…makes it a little more interesting that way, right?

 

[dochawk]

May be, but as clergy I am looking for the spiritual well being and commitment of a couple, pre-nups lead to to be questioning those issues.

(Father? Father Deacon? I really have no idea, and can’t

We’re talkng abut two entirely different types of prenup.

The more common type is dividing property/support/whatever in case of divorce. This is unequivocally bad for the marriage (see my reference to Marvin Mitchelson).

In the case of a second marrriage later in life, with children and propery, the prenup is about distribution of proper to each party’s children after that party’s death. A will cannot accomplish this in a way that will stand up, for example, against a child of the other party acting under a disability power of attorney.

also, the pressures that adult children put on the golden years marriage is a serious problem;the prenup makes the distribution a “done deal.”

hawk, esq.

 

[dochawk]

Its possible but in that case lying and deception would be the grounds not ABC. Use of ABC, though sinful, is not in itself grounds for nullity of marital consent.

Absolutely, Father.

I hope I didn’t imply that the ABC rather than the deceit abut the intention to use it would be the cause.

 

[dochawk]

Thank you!

You’re welcome.

What you as a lawyer are looking for civil conditions to a marriage, as clergy I am looking to the spiritual and what is very mush often hardr to determine, a couple’s true intention. the existance of a pre-nup could point to the idea that at the very begining of a marriage, one or both are holding some kind of deep doubts as far as their long term commitment.
This is part of what a tribunial would look at as well and is the reason why the question is part of the standard questioning of a couple.

I don’t do family law anymore; by the time is topped, it wS making me physically ill.

anyway, I’m looking at e same factors here. I detailed more in the other thread, but the gist is that there are fundamental diffeencences between a prenup about property and support in case of divorce, which almost guarantees one, and those about division of property on death, which avoid pressures on the marriage.

hawk, esq.

 

[Vico]

Interestingly Pope Pius XII concluded something very subtle about matrimonial consent:

“Serious motives, such as those which not rarely arise from medical, eugenic, economic and social so-called ‘indications,’ may exempt husband and wife from the obligatory, positive debt for a long period or even for the entire period of matrimonial life. From this it follows that the observance of the natural sterile periods may be lawful, from the moral viewpoint: and it is lawful in the conditions mentioned. If, however, according to a reasonable and equitable judgment, there are no such grave reasons either personal or deriving from exterior circumstances, the will to avoid the fecundity of their union, while continuing to satisfy to the full their sensuality, can only be the result of a false appreciation of life and of motives foreign to sound ethical principles.”

papalencyclicals.net/Pius12/P12midwives.htm