Questions on Annulments

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I actually liked your approach, and am very happy for you both. But I’m sensing in the OP a certain lack of passion.
 
@Lara, I assume you’re responding to jfz178 ? I think I sense shock and numbness in the first post. It’s more of a normal reaction among men to sort out their feelings before expressing them … so, it’s a common mistake for women (maybe Lara, I din’t check?) to sense a lack of passion when it’s more like struggling to maintain self discipline. Even Jesus sweated blood in the Garden while the Apostles were busy bickering over who got to sit on what throne. Sometimes, nothing is of any value that a guy can say except a prayer to his father.
 
I suspect the OP does need to sort out his feelings. Yes, I am a woman.
 
jfz178 said:
the quotes I had were the language that at least one tribunal actually uses
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Yeah, but you’re misconstruing what they mean. Canon law is wonky that way… you can’t just pick it up and assume you know what it means. 🤷‍♂️
 
The putative wife’s response was about her own maturity. That is sufficient grounds by itself.

I am not sure you speak in the first person as “I”, when the opening post has the icon of alchemon, and not Gorgias.

I personally think that cohabitation (presuming you mean sexual intercourse/fornication) is against church law; Therefore, I conclude the groom married in a state of mortal sin against church law.

Even though you were not Catholic at the time, none the less, you were breaking a law of the church. That doesn’t mean you didn’t “mary”, but it does mean that you weren’t definitely joined by Jesus the Christ in a permanent bond. You couldn’t have a sacrament, and most likely … you didn’t even believe in Sacraments at the time if you match the O.P’s description.

Jesus words were “What God has joined, let no man separate”; Jesus did NOT say, what man has joined let God not separate.

The church has the right to make laws that forbid marriages under certain conditions, even if the marriages were valid at one point in the past.

There are two kinds of marriages, Sacramental … and natural. The sacramental ones REQUIRE that the people follow the law of the church at the time they were first married to have them. Or else, they must later reconcile with the church and have their marriage blessed. The O.P. says that neither of these events happened.
 
jfz178 said:
Trying to speed the divorce up and playing hardball with the economics of it helped. It made her feel she was losing control and was facing a bleak future. I also turned on the Catholic guilt trip. I know all that sounds “un-spouse like” and even cruel, but it was “tough love.”
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It does sound cruel, and likely would have the opposite effect on me if someone tried to use it. I’d be the type to hardball back and aim for more than I would have initially.

On saying that I wouldn’t leave a marriage unless there was abuse or adultery involved.
 
Yeah, I get that and that is why I hesitated to share that experience and why I have been careful to say, “I can’t tell you what to do. I can only share my experience in the hopes someone in need gets a workable idea or two.” Separation and divorce is a radically different, bizarre situation. I had to find what worked for us, as everyone needs to find what works for them.

I gave my wife a push she needed. I actually did a lot more compromising and changing than she did ad now that we are back together I am following through and even finding more ways to change. I had to do what I did to even get her to the table to convince her of all I was willing to do. I have not told the whole story and I won’t, it’s too personal.
 
In the US it is true, not sure how other Bishops’ Conferences handle it.
 
I am not misconstring anything. I am reporting what I learned that tribunals are using for source material, what doing, and making a case that has some impact on the 90% approval rate of applications. What I would actually do is hire that Canon law firm that helps with annulments and have them do the interpretation.
 
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🙂 Wisdom. Each situation is different; Each of us can only share cautions and hopes and respect boundaries of emotional difficulty.
 
The Tribunal will look at each of your testimony and the testimony of witnesses. The spouses are not the people who determine validity. Don’t get the cart before the horse.
 
Agree. The maturity bar is very low. If marriage required the maturity of a sage and the understanding of a scholar, very few could enter marriage.
 
Very few could enter sacramental marraige, perhaps. But that doesn’t meant they couldn’t enter marriage. I would suggest to you something gentle … there may be many marriages in existence that aren’t yet blessed fully, deeply, sacramentally which can grow into a full sacrament. But such growth and transition requires faithfulness to Jesus’s law. There is also the power in priesthood and God to punish by the merits of a bad marriage. For even though Adam and Eve are the ones who brought death and mortal sin upon us all, God did not allow them out of a marriage that he had designed for them. Rather, God confirmed that a law of lust and domination would be the punishment in their marriage. A marriage tribunal is something to be in awe of.
 
If both validly baptized parties enter a valid marriage, it is Sacramental.

Two validly baptized 18 year old Baptists who are free to marry have a Sacramental marriage.

A validly baptized Methodist and a validly baptized Presbyterian who are free to marry have a Sacramental marriage.

The only way a valid natural marriage “grows into” a sacramental marriage is if the unbaptized spouse(s) then are validly baptized.

An unbaptized non-denominational and a validly baptized Catholic, who are free to marry and follow the Church laws that bind the Catholic party, they enter a valid natural marriage. If the non-denom spouse later is baptized, the marriage becomes Sacramental from that point on.
 
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Negative.
That is not the only way a valid natural marriage can “grow into” a sacramental marriage.

Consider, all these laws are based on the words of Christ who created Sacramental marraige; but Adam and Eve and the whole of the law of Genesis that Jesus is QUOTING to the Jews were not sacramental.
Specifically consider that it is Adam and Eve whom Jesus is referring to when he says “in the beginning it was not so.”

Simple baptism doesn’t automatically turn a non sacramental marriage into a Sacrament.
Or else, if a spouse separated from another spouse when both were not Catholic, and then both became baptised a later date; any marriages they entered into in the interim before their conversion would become retroactively sacramental. That’s chaos.

There is a complex issue that I am not sure how to address at this time, and I have have asked the annulment tribunal about because I am uncertain of what the Catechism intends to teach regarding annulments.

But, I would turn your attention for a moment to an infallible church councils as a warning as to the intellectual difficulty of the problems involved with licit marriages in historical settings and the Church’s authority to punish marriages that were valid in times past, but which they later decide to refuse to acknowledge.

The central question I have is whether or not the Catholic church is a divine institution capable of acting “in persona Christi”, and dissolving marriages … or not. If the Catholic church is just a creation of men, then there is no reason to belong to such a church or to believe in the power of it’s tribunals.

Eastern and Western churches directly descended from the Apostles differ in their Theology of what makes a marriage. In the Eastern churches, often two people consenting is not the same as having received the words of a valid priest declaring the couple married before God. In the west, the view is that the people themselves instate the sacramental covenant … but only if allowed by law.

I am at a loss as how to untangle all the nuances.
 
Correct me if I’m wrong, and explain carefully: Two people who are first cousins are married as non Catholics, They become baptised. The previous marriage is against church law. I believe they do not automatically have a sacramental marriage because there is an impediment. Baptism does not automatically create a sacramental marriage. Baptism does not (by itself) remove impediments.
 
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