Protestants and annulments

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But in the case of two people who have been married for a long time. They have several children. This couple has lived much of their life together. Now comes divorce. “Nothing happened?” Come on, for the people of this family, much happened. This is why what God has joined together, should remain together.

Before Faulken or others here attack for what I have written here, this my belief.
 
JoeShlabotnik said:
But in the case of two people who have been married for a long time. They have several children. This couple has lived much of their life together. Now comes divorce. “Nothing happened?” Come on, for the people of this family, much happened. This is why what God has joined together, should remain together.
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A wedding happened.

If the tribunal issues a declaration of nullity it has determined through evidence that a valid marriage did not occur.

You are on the outside looking in, therefore do not have access to all the information.
 
Thanks, I hope you are open to more questions for I find this so interesting. In a case where a marriage is found to be invalid, did God always know that without the determination of the Tribunal?
 
JoeShlabotnik said:
But in the case of two people who have been married for a long time. They have several children. This couple has lived much of their life together. Now comes divorce. “Nothing happened?” Come on, for the people of this family, much happened. This is why what God has joined together, should remain together.

Before Faulken or others here attack for what I have written here, this my belief.
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You are free to believe what you want. That doesn’t make the Church wrong.

From personal experience I’ve seen my next door neighbours marry because she was pregnant in 1951. He continued to have affairs throughout the marriage, he beat her and the first born child, who at one point screamed at him as he was beating her, “Go ahead and kill me, you never wanted me born anyway.” He even threatened her with a shotgun.

They remained married even though her parish priest told he to get out after the first couple of kids. Back in the day that wasn’t advice he would have given lightly. But she stayed and had a total of 8 children. Do you honestly think God had joined them? There were at least two reasons that marriage would have likely been found invalid: lack of free will (he didn’t want to get married but the pregnancy forced him to) and no intent to remain faithful.
 
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Wannano said:
Thanks, I hope you are open to more questions for I find this so interesting. In a case where a marriage is found to be invalid, did God always know that without the determination of the Tribunal?
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Well, we believe in an all-knowing God, so He would have, wouldn’t He?
 
Please bear with me I sincerely am trying to see the big picture. So then it may well be that non-Catholics may be in a non-valid marriage and not be aware of it? Therefore, not all people who get divorced and then remarry are necessarily committing adultery for their marriage may have been invalid therefore non-existent in God’s eyes?
 
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Wannano said:
So then it may well be that non-Catholics may be in a non-valid marriage and not be aware of it?
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That’s my husband.

He was baptized as a Protestant, I as a Catholic. I decided as a teen I was a Reformed Christian, but I never formally left the Church. When we married (in a Reformed parish), I didn’t care about my canonical status and didn’t bother asking for a dispensation from canonical form.

Fast forward 13 years. I am now wanting back, and finding out our marriage is invalid (lack of canonical form). I am not sure he is even aware of that.

I intend to have the situation regularized as soon as it is possible, but if we were to separate right now, we would, in all probability, both be free to remarry.
 
Wannano said:
Can you explain what lack of canonical form is that would invalidate?
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Catholics are required to marry before a priest (or the Church’s designated officiant) and two witnesses, or contracted elsewhere with a dispensation from this requirement by their bishop. The Council of Trent established the form of marriage as being required.

If a Catholic attempts to contract a marriage and does not do it in canonical form it is not valid. From the code of canon law:

Can. 1108 §1. Only those marriages are valid which are contracted before the local ordinary, pastor, or a priest or deacon delegated by either of them, who assist, and before two witnesses according to the rules expressed in the following canons
 
I also do not know when decrees of nullity began in the Church. Certainly before the reign of King Henry 8th. And given that the Pauline Privilege and the Petrine Privilege date back to the earliest Church, one could say that it dates clear back to then; certainly not in the form we have today, but at least in some of the substance.
 
OddBird said:
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Wannano:
So then it may well be that non-Catholics may be in a non-valid marriage and not be aware of it?
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That’s my husband.

He was baptized as a Protestant, I as a Catholic. I decided as a teen I was a Reformed Christian, but I never formally left the Church. When we married (in a Reformed parish), I didn’t care about my canonical status and didn’t bother asking for a dispensation from canonical form.

Fast forward 13 years. I am now wanting back, and finding out our marriage is invalid (lack of canonical form). I am not sure he is even aware of that.

I intend to have the situation regularized as soon as it is possible, but if we were to separate right now, we would, in all probability, both be free to remarry.
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Do you see a situation for a non-Catholic where divorce and remarriage would not incur the sin of adultery?

Edit: other than what you described above is what I meant.
 
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Porneia has been able to be divorced from the beginning, Paul showed that believers are not bound to non believers.

What has caused much scandal, is the grossly widened interpretation of grounds for nullity claimed by the American tribunals since 1983.

You wont find these reasons for nullity in Scripture, the Church Fathers, Saints writings, or the Councils of the Church.
 
In America, the tribunals would most likely see 80 to 90 percent of them as invalid.
 
Patri said:
It is not really a way out, not everyone is able to get an annulment and remarry. I know of someone that went to her priest and he told her that she did not have grounds for an annulment.
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Tribunals themselves dont require a pastor to permit them to seek an investigation by the tribunal. I’ve heard instances where a parish priest did not support nullity, but one was later granted.
There are reasons why a marriage is declared non-valid, that has to be examined by the tribunal. I do think the ones I have heard are pure common sense and logic. For example being coerced into marriage (and the couple is asked if they are there willingly), or when there is deception and one does not tell the other that they have no intention of having kids… I know that there are other reasons. If I got married and unfortunately got a divorce but not an annulment because the marriage was valid, then it would be “till death” for me.
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Just the fact that a civil divorce occurred is a reason for American tribunals to question the validity.
I know we all have a desire to be loved and a legal separation in the case of domestic abuse, for example, is a lesser evil but I really do not understand the easy divorce and remarriage I see in some non-catholics. I would like to get an insight, don’t they believe it is forever? What are they told by their pastors when they get a divorce?
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Non Catholic Churches are all over the board. Some believe Matthew’s exception clause is not an exception to remarry at all, but refers to betrothal infidelity, and so was never a binding marriage. Which is Scripturally sound (Deut. 22). These dont contradict True Catholic Teaching. They preach separation with the bond remaining is sometimes justified.

Others have a similar investigation by their Church which determines if their was grounds to divorce based on their interpretation of Matthew’s exception clause, or their interpretation of the Pauline Privilege.

So they (non Catholic Christians) use Matthew’s exception clause and American Catholic tribunals use Matthew’s exception clause too. They both use them, and who uses them more broadly is debatable.

Only the tribunal calls it invalid, and non Catholic Christian’s call it divorced.

Hope that helps @Wannano
 
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I have one for you, I know of a person who was married three times and got two annulments.
 
I am far from being a canonist (and probably people like @1ke would be far more competent to answer your question), but I would imagine it would be exactly the same that for a Catholic (cases involving a defect of form, a defect of contract, a defect of will, or a defect of capacity).

ETA : and assuming none of these impediments prevent the Protestant party from contracting a new union (for example, the marriage hasn’t been declared null because the Protestant party wasn’t actually free to marry).
 
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Obviously Catholic and Protestants arent much different in reality of divorce and remarriage.

Catholics just try to feel better about calling it another name (while treating it no different).

There are sound decrees of nullity, and not so sound decrees of nullity. All have “authority” of the Church, though that doesnt necessarily mean they are free from error.

In theory, I side with the Catholic belief. In practice, I see little difference with the interpretations of what constitutes nullity by the American tribunals (mainly what is afforded defect of consent due to, incapacity, psychosis, Simulation, etc.) and what is permissible divorce by most non Catholic Christian churches.
 
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in a situation where a person is involved in two nullity cases, remember, the defect or impediment is not always on their end.
 
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