The Legitimacy of Today's Annulments.

[JRKH]

marysadvocates.org/Kendra.html

The source was given in the post. It is from the Catholic journal, Homiletic and pastoral review, December 2005, America’s Annulment Mills, by Robert J. Kendra.

Thank you for the clarification.
So this quote is not something from canon law or th magesterium, but rather is the authors own determination of how things should work. I just want to make that clarification.

Now as to my other points made in the same post???

James

 

[bobzills]

Now as to my other points made in the same post???

We note that the Church has upheld the principle of the indissolubility of marriage for almost 2000 years up until Vatican II, when we see a loosening of the position by the method of granting annulments on grounds which were not admitted before. But we have the messages of the Vicar of Christ, His Holiness the Pope, concerning new opinions, as given on January 22, 1899:
Leo XIII:
Concerning New Opinions "The underlying principle of these new opinions is that, in order to more easily attract those who differ from her, the Church should shape her teachings more in accord with the spirit of the age and relax some of her ancient severity and make some concessions to new opinions. Many think that these concessions should be made not only in regard to ways of living, but even in regard to doctrines which belong to the deposit of the faith. They contend that it would be opportune, in order to gain those who differ from us, to omit certain points of her teaching which are of lesser importance, and to tone down the meaning which the Church has always attached to them. It does not need many words, beloved son, to prove the falsity of these ideas if the nature and origin of the doctrine which the Church proposes are recalled to mind. The Vatican Council says concerning this point: ‘For the doctrine of faith which God has revealed has not been proposed, like a philosophical invention to be perfected by human ingenuity, but has been delivered as a divine deposit to the Spouse of Christ to be faithfully kept and infallibly declared. Hence that meaning of the sacred dogmas is perpetually to be retained which our Holy Mother, the Church, has once declared, nor is that meaning ever to be departed from under the pretense or pretext of a deeper comprehension of them.’

 

[Phemie]

This is another thing that bothers me about the annulment process.
". A conscientious petitioner (the party seeking the annulment) would first seek an annulment to be assured that no valid sacramental marriage existed, prior to seeking a civil divorce. "
"Therefore, a tribunal must prejudge the marriage to be invalid prior to judging its validity, in order to justify a divorce preceding an annulment. "
How do you justfiy a divorce, if an annulment has not been yet granted? Didn’t Jesus condemn divorce: “Therefore, what God has joined together let no man put asunder” (Mk 10:9)
See:
marysadvocates.org/Kendra.html

The Church recognizes that a divorce is sometimes necessary for the physical, moral & financial safety of the spouse & children, even when the marriage is VALID.

 

[JRKH]

Originally Posted by JRKH
Now as to my other points made in the same post???

We note that the Church has upheld the principle of the indissolubility of marriage for almost 2000 years up until Vatican II, when we see a loosening of the position by the method of granting annulments on grounds which were not admitted before. But we have the messages of the Vicar of Christ, His Holiness the Pope, concerning new opinions, as given on January 22, 1899:
Leo XIII:
Concerning New Opinions "The underlying principle of these new opinions is that, in order to more easily attract those who differ from her, the Church should shape her teachings more in accord with the spirit of the age and relax some of her ancient severity and make some concessions to new opinions. Many think that these concessions should be made not only in regard to ways of living, but even in regard to doctrines which belong to the deposit of the faith. They contend that it would be opportune, in order to gain those who differ from us, to omit certain points of her teaching which are of lesser importance, and to tone down the meaning which the Church has always attached to them. It does not need many words, beloved son, to prove the falsity of these ideas if the nature and origin of the doctrine which the Church proposes are recalled to mind. The Vatican Council says concerning this point: ‘For the doctrine of faith which God has revealed has not been proposed, like a philosophical invention to be perfected by human ingenuity, but has been delivered as a divine deposit to the Spouse of Christ to be faithfully kept and infallibly declared. Hence that meaning of the sacred dogmas is perpetually to be retained which our Holy Mother, the Church, has once declared, nor is that meaning ever to be departed from under the pretense or pretext of a deeper comprehension of them.’

Well my my… That certainly is a mouthful, but what has it to do with a direct answer to my direct questions.
Annulments are issued in accordance with allowances made by the Church in Rome. We may discuss and even dispute whether the tribunals are acting in too broad a sense but the fact remains that annullments are permitted.

Now I will post my questions once again to you and see if you are willing to give direct answers:

Let’s try to get through a couple of things here.
Do you believe that someone who marries an abuser is required to stay in that marriage?
How about someone who sleeps around (possibly bringing home disease)?
Did God join them together?

Now how about this:
When we marry in the Church “God has Joined Together.”
When an annulment is granted then obviously God, Through His Church, has determined that the origional marriage was in error.
Then it is not man putting asunder, but God himself.

James

 

[Daddums]

Do you believe that someone who marries an abuser is required to stay in that marriage?

Yes. Hopefully from a safe distance if there is a threat to life or health.

How about someone who sleeps around (possibly bringing home disease)?

Yes. Everyone here who was faithful to their marriage from birth raise your hand. I’m hoping to see lots of hands.

Did God join them together?

Yes. Funny you should mention God. I’ve seen little if any mention of Him in this thread other than whether or not the Holy Spirit came to the wedding. I hope He came to mine.

Daddums

 

[Phemie]

Yes. Hopefully from a safe distance if there is a threat to life or health.

Unfortunately, that may not be possible without a divorce and the Church recognizes that. It doesn’t mean you’re free to go on with your life as though you weren’t married but it’s probably the only way to have safety, & financial support (imposed by the court).

Daddums

 

[Michael_Saint]

I always assumed my marriage was valid. I had no reason to believe otherwise. After a divorce which I did not ever forsee happening, I initiated the annullment process for one reason only, to know where I stood with my Church. If my marriage was to be declared valid, I would live the remainder of my life as a married woman (albeit separated and celibate). If the marriage was declared invalid, I would know it would be appropriate for me to be open to other relationships should they come along.

So you wanted the freedom to “marry” someone else, right?

 

[Michael_Saint]

The Church recognizes that a divorce is sometimes necessary for the physical, moral & financial safety of the spouse & children, even when the marriage is VALID.

Not true. The Church recognizes only “separation”, not “divorce”, in dire circumstances, and ONLY until the spouse reforms.

 

[rpp]

So if I am understanding what some are asserting here, the increased number of annulments is not a reflection of an increase in divorce rates among Catholics. Nor is it a reflection of an increase in divorce rates among people who eventually convert to the Catholic. Rather the assertion being made is that there is an increase in the number of the nullity petitions submitted as well as an increase in the number of annulments granted.

The implication of tis increase is that many of these nullity declarations are not correct; that valid marriage are being declared invalid out of some sense of misplaced charity.

Do I understand this correctly? Does that summarize the main assertions of this thread?

So what can an individual, such as myself, who is awaiting judgment on my nullity petition think should my marriage be declared null? I mean I was an atheist and my ex was an unbaptized atheist. We were married by a Wiccan high-priestess and had a prenuptial agreement. She hid a number of things from me, such as significant financial holding she had overseas. She divorced me because I converted to the Catholic Church.

Should I not believe the nullity declaration? If the Tribunal determines a valid sacramental marriage marriage never existed, am I culpable if they ruled incorrectly? How can I know if they are right? How can any well-meaning person who goes through this very difficult and painful process know?

I just want to do the right thing.

 

[Michael_Saint]

Do you believe that someone who marries an abuser is required to stay in that marriage?
How about someone who sleeps around (possibly bringing home disease)?
Did God join them together?

Now how about this:
When we marry in the Church “God has Joined Together.”
When an annulment is granted then obviously God, Through His Church, has determined that the origional marriage was in error.
Then it is not man putting asunder, but God himself.

James

1. Someone who marries an abuser should SEPARATE for a time, and pray that the “abuser” has a conversion so they may once again live together, which they vowed to do when they got married in front of God and Man.
2. Someone who marries someone who sleeps around should also separate and do what I have described above.
3. If form, matter, and intention were all present, then yes God joined them together, because sometimes God gives us what we stubbornly seek and pursue, even when we do not consult His will.

God doesn’t determine anything. The Church makes a fallible declaration that God did not join them together in the first place because either form, matter, or intention were lacking. God cannot put asunder what He did not establish in the first place. Annulments do nothing retroactively.

 

[Michael_Saint]

I find it ironic how all the defenders of today’s annulment practices and tribunals that have posted on this thread are all either divorcees who have “remarried” or actual tribunal officers themselves.

 

[Michael_Saint]

If the Tribunal determines a valid sacramental marriage marriage never existed, am I culpable if they ruled incorrectly? How can I know if they are right? How can any well-meaning person who goes through this very difficult and painful process know?

Actually, Wiccan high priestesses can still validly marry two people.

Here is what Dr. Scott Hahn says, and I think this is the best advice to follow. He prefaces it by stating that “Church lawyers brag they can annul every marriage”, based on “27 different grounds of psychological disturbances”. He concludes that “most annulments” are not true annulments. His suggestion? Even though he thinks seeking an annulment today is a dangerous thing because of the above, he says: “Don’t not seek an annulment, but don’t purjure yourself or exaggerate, tell the whole truth. If you think the decision was made because it was the easy road, the shortcut, you will stand before God and He will show you your decision, and if there is any falsification or hedging and if you know lawyers played fast and loose with Church law, you are an adulterer”. Therefore he concludes, “if you do seek an annulment, do it with caution”, for “Church courts are not infallible”, and in the end, if you are guilty of what is described above, your ignorance is “vincible”. (“Exodus”, Dr. Scott Hahn, Tape #7 [1990]).

 

[bobzills]

Here is what Dr. Scott Hahn says, and I think this is the best advice to follow. He prefaces it by stating that “Church lawyers brag they can annul every marriage”, based on “27 different grounds of psychological disturbances”. He concludes that “most annulments” are not true annulments.

This is another thing that bothers me about the annulment process. If just about any marriage can be annulled based on soft psychological reasons, then who out there in the Catholic world is actually married?
And further, we are seeing a large increase in the number of Catholic couples who are living together without the benefit of marriage. Could it be that what is going through their minds is this boast of Church lawyers that they can annul any marriage? If this is true, then why should they go through this trouble of getting married, when later on down the line, there is a good chance that the Church will declare the marriage to be invalid on shaky psychological grounds?

 

[Norseman82]

If there are people responding here who are on marriage tribunals and if you are allowed to comment, I would be interested in hearing whether or not the new psychologial “soft reasons” (and please keep in mind, today almost anything can be cause for recommending therapy to people) are as big a factor as many of us fear in the annulment process today.

She divorced me because I converted to the Catholic Church.

This sounds like a textbook definition of “Pauline Priviledge”, so bring this up to your priest or anyone else who may be working with you on this matter.

 

[rpp]

If there are people responding here who are on marriage tribunals and if you are allowed to comment, I would be interested in hearing whether or not the new psychologial “soft reasons” are as big a factor as many of us fear in the annulment process today.

This sounds like a textbook definition of “Pauline Priviledge”, so bring this up to your priest or anyone else who may be working with you on this matter.

Thanks, I actually have. I was told that if the Tribunal does not find the marriage valid, that I should appeal to Rome for this. (To give you an idea of the extent of her attitude, when I left ofr Mass the very first time she moved all my stuff into the guest bedroom while I was at Mass. When I got home she said we could not reconcile until I stopped going to Church.)

 

[istaru2001]

This whole subject is one of those that will become a quagmire. It is a large and complicated issue with few easy answers.

I honestly cannot believe that the people applying for annulment, and answering the questions I had to answer, are being deliberately dishonest. If they care enough about their souls to try for an annulment, they surely aren’t going to lie on the application. And as far as the tribunals go I believe that most are doing the best they can to administer the system diligently and properly.
Remember the tribunals are not marriage councilers. They do not become involved until after the marriage has already ended in civil divorce.

Anyway, That’s my 2 dollars worth

James

Good afternoon one and all,

First of all, I’m currently enrolled in RCIA and going through an annulment. Since I have remarried, I must get an annulment from my first marriage so that I can get baptized into the Catholic faith and have my second marriage blessed in the Catholic Church. It is not easy. I live in Florida and I had to write and get all my info mailed back from Waukegan, Il. (marriage license and divorce decree). I had to answer 59 questions about myself and my married life. This was all mailed to the local diocese in St. Petersburg. About 3 weeks later they informed me that I needed at least 4 charactor witnesses.(didn’t have witnesses to the marriage that happened 22 years). So I sent the diocese 4 addresses (4 different states)and they wrote to my witnesses. The witnesses wrote back to the diocese. Then I received a Decree Joining The Issue. Now everything is sent to the Arch Diocese in Miami, Florida. All I have to do is wait for the final decree. This has taken about 4 months. I hope everything will be in order by Holy Saturday, so that I can get baptized. I pray that it will. I have faith and it’s out of my hands and into God’s hands.
This is my second time going through RCIA. Last year I dropped out because of the annulment issue. I was angry and didn’t understand why I needed an annulment and I thought the questions were too personal. It took me a year to realize that the annulment process is a healing time and I’m glad that I can now look back and feel no anger or resentment against my former spouse.

Paula

 

[dulcissima]

1. Someone who marries an abuser should SEPARATE for a time, and pray that the “abuser” has a conversion so they may once again live together, which they vowed to do when they got married in front of God and Man.
2. Someone who marries someone who sleeps around should also separate and do what I have described above.
3. If form, matter, and intention were all present, then yes God joined them together, because sometimes God gives us what we stubbornly seek and pursue, even when we do not consult His will.

God doesn’t determine anything. The Church makes a fallible declaration that God did not join them together in the first place because either form, matter, or intention were lacking. God cannot put asunder what He did not establish in the first place. Annulments do nothing retroactively.

You know nothing about domestic violence. The advocate who helped me with my restraining order looked at the information on what my husband had done to me and told me that if my husband came to me on his knees and vowed that he had changed, that I must never, ever take him back. This advocate was an usher at my parish. Abusers will do everything in their power to not lose control over their victim, they will go to no ends to show that they have changed, that they have seen the light. The truth is, when that victim trusts and puts herself back into the situation, those established patterns are just too strong, and she will find herself in a place that is even more dangerous, even more hopeless. The Church has learned a lot about the rehabilitation potential of abusers. It is not something that can or should be counted on.

My ex-husband still claims to love me. He has no idea what love is. Love is sacrificial. It is other centered. It is Christ dying on the cross for us. Certainly, I could have stayed in my marriage. I could have been a martyr. I endured it for 17 years, until I finally realized that if my job was to get this man to heaven, allowing him to treat me like this with no consequence was never going to bring that about. Walking on eggshells, catering to his every whim was not only no way for me to live, no example of what a marriage should be for my children, it was also spiritually harmful for him. The kindest thing I ever did for him was to leave him. I am hoping that an affirmative decision in my petition for a declaration of nullity will give him another hard dose of reality that what we had was not a marriage.

I don’t want this cycle of abuse passed down to my children either. I want them to know that what their father and I had was not a marriage. I want them to want better. I want them to understand what true love and true sacrifice are really all about.

I am glad that I became a Catholic. I wish that I had been one as a child. I do think that I might have been prevented from making the mistakes that I did. I feel very confident though in my decision to leave. I had talked to my priest about what I was facing in my marriage, and was not only told to leave, but given a deadline for doing so. It was the hardest thing I have ever had to do, but I know unquestionably that it was the right thing. I attended a class on the annulment process last Spring, and the priest who gave the class quoted the head of the Rota when speaking about physical and emtional abuse, saying that he was very firm in saying that no person should ever have to live in hell, just to go to hell. There is so much truth to this, because that is what happens when you are abused, your soul is attacked. This is why so many stay in these marriages, because they are already spiritually dead.

I poured over the Mary’s advocate website while I was completing my petition for nullity. I wanted to be certain that I was doing the right thing. I suppose to those on this thread who think that they know better than the Church about whether or not petitioners should be granted a declaration of nullity will discount what I have to say since I am someone going through the process. I honestly can’t see why they believe to have more knowledge than those who serve on a tribunal or those who have gone through the process themselves.

And the Church might make a fallible dclaration, but their authority to do so was given to them by Christ. Their decisions, perfect or imperfect, are binding.

 

[a_cermak]

I really don’t think the annulments are the reason for young Catholics to co-habitate instead of marrying. The reason I’ve heard and the reason I used (I was Catholic at the time) was that if I were married, and the marriage broke up, I would be unable to marry again. But, if I were co-habitating and the relationship broke up, it was no harm no foul.

I’ve known many Catholics who’ve remarried, but most of them haven’t bothered with the annulment process–they’ve simply done a civil marriage or borrowed the Episcopalian or Lutheran churches and priests for the occasion. I would guess that only those who have really good cases and are serious about their Catholic faith bother with the annulment process.

 

[Neil_Anthony]

And further, we are seeing a large increase in the number of Catholic couples who are living together without the benefit of marriage. Could it be that what is going through their minds is this boast of Church lawyers that they can annul any marriage?

Yes, of course it is. The annulment scandal has turned Catholic marriage into a joke.

 

[Michael_Saint]

Let us help Fr. Hettinger prove our point for us and cite the Vatican about these crazy tribunals.

Too Many Invalid Annulments by Fr Clarence Hettinger
(Homiletic and Pastoral Review)

Too Many Invalid Annulments

A 1991 Rota decision said, "The continually, daily increasing number of marriage cases especially in some regions of the world in which the ground is defect of discretion of judgment and/or incapacity to assume and fulfill the essential obligations of marriage due to causes of a psychic nature constitutes a grave problem for the Catholic Church regarding the sanctity and stability of the matrimonial bond. Although this phenomenon is to be placed most especially in modern times both in a more profound investigation of anthropology and in a more perfect knowledge of the doctrine about the nature of marriage, there is no one who does not see that ‘cases of the nullity of marriage because of the above mentioned grounds are to be handled with the greatest of caution,’ as the jurisprudence of our forum advises. The Supreme Pontiff has recalled all this to the mind of all who offer their services in tribunals in the administration of justice, with the purpose and plan that any shadow of arbitrariness in the handling of these kinds of cases should promptly vanish (cf. 1987 allocution, no. 7."1)

Also during 1986 the Rota heard ten cases from the United States’ Two of them were not sufficiently significant to warrant publication of the text of the decision. Only one of them was affirmative and, at that, only on one of two grounds.

Ironically, another also was affirmative but it was “yes, nullity of sentence has been proved.” The rest were negative. Therefore, realistically, that is, in light of the principles of Christian anthropology, the possible 9:1 success ratio just mentioned should have been reversed to 1:9.

[Edited by Moderator]

(To read more go to the link)