The Legitimacy of Today's Annulments.

[bobzills]

As is the case with millions of other couples. I believe the issue has become more about the situation “after” the marriage then what the situation was “at the time”.

It’s kind of like the scientific hypothesis that wants the theory to be true and then looks for the indicators to make it true. (Some would say global warming meets this criteria). The couple wants the ability to remarry, they must first get a declaration of nullity, and then proceed to look for the “indicators” to prove the point. Using this standard, and the criteria for nullity, it becomes hard to find ANY marriage valid. So then validity becomes more about preception and individual perspective then truth.

Well put.
These after the marriage inspirations really come up in any marriage, so perhaps that is why we have this quote from Father Doherty.

 

[thomasf]

I have a few things to say.

First, the whole 90% figure people keep throwing out. Just because 90% of marriages sent to tribunals are judged null doesn’t mean 90% of marriages are null. You have to filter that. First, through the number of marriages that actually break up. Then through people who actually seek an annulment. Then through the number of cases that actually make it through a parish priest to be presented to the tribunal. Those filters reduce that number significantly each time. You cannot extrapolate that figure to make it seem as though 90% of people are in invalid marriages.

If you take the stat that 50% of marriages end in divorce (even catholics), and apply it to that 90% annulment rate stat, you get 45%. So 45% of catholic marriages are judged invalid? But remember that not all catholic divorces are put up for annulment, so filter that again. Consider that maybe 80% of the catholic divorces get put up for annulment, that stat turns to 36% of catholic marriages are judged invalid. But wait, not all annulments make off the ground past the priest. Then you apply the filter that maybe 70% of cases brought to a priest get processed, and you get 25% of catholic marriages are judged not valid. But not all annulments are made on the grounds of impediments to marriage. Many are judged null because they didn’t have canonical form (not married in a church, etc). So you can further filter that by assuming that maybe 70% of cases brought to tribunal aren’t decided because of lack of canonical form, and you get about 17.6%. So once you’ve filtered that down, you get that maybe 18% of catholic marriages are declared invalid because of factors that lead to impediments at the time of marriage. That’s not an incredibly high number, less than 20%. And frankly, I think the percentages I used were rather high, so I think in actuality that number is much, much lower. I doubt that 80% of catholics apply for annulments after divorce, or that 70% of those make it through the intial process. And many that do make it through because of lack of form. Even slight overstatements of those numbers will bring down that final percentage.

 

[thomasf]

Second, the church views all marriages as valid unless otherwise proved null. If you have a couple that get married in the church and are perfectly happy and live together forever, whether or not those people had circumstances that might prove their marriage null doesn’t matter. The marriage has to break down to get to the annulment process to begin with. If you get married validly in the church, yet were immature or had some other impediment that might be used in an annulment process, yet that impediment doesn’t come to play in the marriage and the marriage lasts, then that marriage is valid. There are a lot of things that could possibly annul a marriage, yet they don’t unless the marriage breaks up. If you’re married, and you’re successful, then you’re married. The annulment process applies to those whose marriages break up, after they break up. Not to any and all marriages.Once you are married in the eyes of God, in the eyes of the church, you are married, and your marriage is valid until proven otherwise.

Third, marriage in general in the United States is in a sad state. Civil or legal marriage has taken the concept to a new level. If people viewed marriage in the terms that the church viewed marriage, as a sacrament and something meant forever, then the casual view most people have toward marriage wouldn’t exist. And the divorce rate and remarriage rate would go down. But people don’t have that view, and they do go into marriages not taking them seriously, and that explains a lot of the problems we have in the US with divorce.

Taking that into consideration, it is no suprise to me that in a country that doesn’t understand marriage in the sacramental sense, that the annulment rate is higher than in other countries.

IMO, if the seriousness of the sacrament of marriage was taken more serious by people, and catholics in particular, then this situation with so many annulments wouldn’t exist. Is it really a suprise that the annulment rate has risen in an age where catholics aren’t taught their faith, aren’t catechised properly, and the clergy have retreated from standing firm to the faith in order to ‘compete’ with the secular world? I gaurantee if reform can be made and people do start to understand this sacrament, and give it seriousness it deserves, then people wouldn’t enter marriage frivolously and wouldn’t divorce at such a high rate, and annulments wouldn’t be needed nor granted at high rates.

In a world that glorifies the wedding and the reception, and where people spend $10,000s on wedding ceremonies, moreso than what is actually going on in a marriage ceremony, there should be no suprise at our present situation. The church in the US granting more annulments isn’t the problem, it’s a symptom of the real problem with the sacrament of marriage, in this nation, in the present church.

 

[Phemie]

Do you mean people here or Catholic people. It looks to me like this divorce and annulment thing has hit Catholic people but not anybody else.

I think North Americans in general.

But what I see is not so much “more divorced Catholics” rather “more divorced Catholics petitioning for a decree of nullity.” The people I see petitioning recently have been divorced for a number of years and they now want to get married in the Church. It’s a select few that say “I’m getting a divorce and I’m going to apply for an annulment” when they’ve only just split up.

I’ve met some who can’t face the annulment process because the pain of the marriage is too fresh and they don’t want to rub salt in the wound by having to rehash the whole thing for a third party, nor do they want to implicate their family &/or friends in the process.

One petition that is going through now is probably going to be granted based on not wanting children. Although this couple answered yes in the pre-nup and in the marriage ceremony itself, the bride’s friends all knew that she had absolutely no intention of having children and was going to do whatever it took to prevent it. The priest had no way of knowing that.

 

[First_of_9]

Second, the church views all marriages as valid unless otherwise proved null. If you have a couple that get married in the church and are perfectly happy and live together forever, whether or not those people had circumstances that might prove their marriage null doesn’t matter. The marriage has to break down to get to the annulment process to begin with. If you get married validly in the church, yet were immature or had some other impediment that might be used in an annulment process, yet that impediment doesn’t come to play in the marriage and the marriage lasts, then that marriage is valid. There are a lot of things that could possibly annul a marriage, yet they don’t unless the marriage breaks up. If you’re married, and you’re successful, then you’re married. The annulment process applies to those whose marriages break up, after they break up. Not to any and all marriages.Once you are married in the eyes of God, in the eyes of the church, you are married, and your marriage is valid until proven otherwise.

. . . The church in the US granting more annulments isn’t the problem, it’s a symptom of the real problem with the sacrament of marriage, in this nation, in the present church.

This should be a sticky for every annulment thread.

 

[Norseman82]

There was a thread a month or so ago that touched on this same subject:

forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=195328

As a single never-married person, this is a subject that I follow, and it is depressing to hear such talk about how many marriages today are really sacramentally invalid, even hearing the extrapolation that someone made in the other thread that questions the ability of many people to make a valid consent simply because their parents divorced. This does not give much hope, does it?

I sometimes get the impression that instead of working to fix and build marriages, it is just easier to scare people away from marriage in the first place.

 

[bobzills]

As a single never-married person, this is a subject that I follow, and it is depressing to hear such talk about how many marriages today are really sacramentally invalid, even hearing the extrapolation that someone made in the other thread that questions the ability of many people to make a valid consent simply because their parents divorced. This does not give much hope, does it?

I sometimes get the impression that instead of working to fix and build marriages, it is just easier to scare people away from marriage in the first place.

This is a very good point. Because annulments are so easy to get nowadays, for reasons which before Vatican II would not have been allowed, more and more Catholic couples are considering cohabitation without marriage instead of going through the expense and bother of the marriage ceremony, which has a good chance of being nullified anyway in the end.,

 

[bobzills]

I think North Americans in general.
.

This is where i think that you are seriously wrong. The annulment rate for Catholic marriages has increased by leaps and bounds, whereas the divorce rate for North Americans has been held to a rather small increase in comparison.

 

[Phemie]

This is where i think that you are seriously wrong. The annulment rate for Catholic marriages has increased by leaps and bounds, whereas the divorce rate for North Americans has been held to a rather small increase in comparison.

The increase is due to more people petitioning, not necessarily more people divorcing. How many divorced Catholics do you know? How many have petitioned for a decree of nullity?

While there were break ups and divorces when I was growing up but I only know one couple, a few years older than I am, who petitioned for a decree of nullity.

What I see around here are fewer Catholics bothering to marry in the church if they bother to get married at all. If I look at the register from the 60s and 70s and compare that with the register today, the difference is glaring. If I look around while I’m at Mass the difference is even more obvious. We prepared 8 families for baptism last week. 2 were married, 5 were living common-law and 1 mom was alone.

 

[bobzills]

The increase is due to more people petitioning, not necessarily more people divorcing.

But the number of Catholics in the USA getting annulments has grown by leaps and bounds, whereas the number of people getting divorces in USA has not increased nearly so much.

 

[bobzills]

What I see around here are fewer Catholics bothering to marry in the church if they bother to get married at all.

Correct.
As someone has already noted, perhaps what is going through the minds of Catholic couples today is the question: Why bother to get married, when down the line, perhaps five, ten or fifteen years from now, a Catholic marriage tribunal will give out an official church declaration stating that we were never married sacramentally anyway. And considering the numbers of people who are getting these annulments granted, and in some cases, the rather flimsy reasons why they are being granted, the Catholic couple may decide against an official marriage ceremony.

 

[1ke]

Gee whiz, I am honestly legitimately concerned that my parents, supposedly “married” in 1970 and together for the past 37 years, just may after all NOT be married, and have been fornicating all this time,

Let’s put your mind at ease, by all means:

Can. 1060 Marriage possesses the favor of law; therefore, in a case of doubt, the validity of a marriage must be upheld until the contrary is proven.

Can. 1061 3. An invalid marriage is called putative if at least one party celebrated it in good faith, until both parties become certain of its nullity.

and that I am a bastard.

And, your comments in this post just confirm that you do not understand what a decree of nullity is and is not.

So, let’s put your mind at ease on this count too:

Can. 1137 The children conceived or born of a valid or putative marriage are legitimate.

Starting to wonder if my aunts and cousins aren’t all invalidly “married” too.

Can. 1060 Marriage possesses the favor of law; therefore, in a case of doubt, the validity of a marriage must be upheld until the contrary is proven.

The thing is, I am pretty darn sure that some of the “impediments” that other marriages were declared invalid because of were just as true about my parents when they got married.

Well, since you have no knowledge of the tribunal investigation or their findings regarding these others couples, you are spitting in the wind as far having any sort of argument is concerned.

Other people’s cases stand on their own merit, they have no bearing on your own parents marriage.

 

[1ke]

But the number of Catholics in the USA getting annulments has grown by leaps and bounds, whereas the number of people getting divorces in USA has not increased nearly so much.

Divorce statistics from the planet Mongo?

On planet earth, the divorce rate in the US from 1880 to 1968, with the exception of a spike during WWII, slowly grew from 1 in 1000 to 10 in 1000, then between 1968 and 2001 went from approximately 10 per 1000 married women to 25 per 1000 married women-- a giant leap in only a few years, compared to the more than 80 years prior.

The number of divorces absolutely climbed at an astronomical rate. And, with that I certainly would expect the number of nullity applications to climb as well as the number granted. And, there are huge number of Catholics receiving lack of form decrees b/c they were not married in the Church.

 

[bobzills]

Divorce statistics from the planet Mongo?

On planet earth, the divorce rate in the US from 1880 to 1968, with the exception of a spike during WWII, slowly grew from 1 in 1000 to 10 in 1000, then between 1968 and 2001 went from approximately 10 per 1000 married women to 25 per 1000 married women-- a giant leap in only a few years, compared to the more than 80 years prior.

The number of divorces absolutely climbed at an astronomical rate. And, with that I certainly would expect the number of nullity applications to climb as well as the number granted. And, there are huge number of Catholics receiving lack of form decrees b/c they were not married in the Church.

No. I haven’t heard of the planet you are speaking of. i am speaking of the divorce statistics of the USA as compared to the annulment statistics of the USA: Let’s take a look at a few numbers:
Divorces in the USA
1930: 195, 961
1979: 1,179,000
1998: 1,135,000
Annulments given out by the Catholic Church in the USA:
1930: 9
1989: 61, 416.
The divorces have increased by a factor of about 6 (5.9)
The annulments in the RCC have increased over the same period by a factor of 6824, or more than one thousand times as much as the divorces in the USA at large.

 

[Phemie]

No. I haven’t heard of the planet you are speaking of. i am speaking of the divorce statistics of the USA as compared to the annulment statistics of the USA: Let’s take a look at a few numbers:
Divorces in the USA
1930: 195, 961
1979: 1,179,000
1998: 1,135,000
Annulments given out by the Catholic Church in the USA:
1930: 9
1989: 61, 416.
The divorces have increased by a factor of about 6 (5.9)
The annulments in the RCC have increased over the same period by a factor of 6824, or more than one thousand times as much as the divorces in the USA at large.

Those numbers mean nothing unless you know how many of those 195,961 divorces in 1930 involved Catholic couples and what percentage of total petitions did 9 granted decrees of nullity represent.

How does the percentage of Catholics included in the 1930 divorce figures compare with the percentage of Catholics involved in the 1998 divorce figures?

 

[Norseman82]

No. I haven’t heard of the planet you are speaking of. i am speaking of the divorce statistics of the USA as compared to the annulment statistics of the USA: Let’s take a look at a few numbers:
Divorces in the USA
1930: 195, 961
1979: 1,179,000
1998: 1,135,000
Annulments given out by the Catholic Church in the USA:
1930: 9
1989: 61, 416.
The divorces have increased by a factor of about 6 (5.9)
The annulments in the RCC have increased over the same period by a factor of 6824, or more than one thousand times as much as the divorces in the USA at large.

The number of divorces in 1930 - is this for Catholics only or total in America?

I think to really get a good picture, we need to compare three numbers:

1. Number of divorces among Catholics
2. Number of divorces among the general population
3. Number of annulments issued by the Church

Additionally, I think we need to further take into account for number of divorces among Catholics how many actually were married sacramentally, as well as how many annulments were granted to non-Catholics who were married previously in a non-Catholic ceremony but who now seek marriage to someone in the Catholic Church.

Additionally, I don’t know if we can compare annulment statistics to non-Catholic marriages (per a previous poster’s inquiry), since I don’t know how many non-Catholic churches have an annulment process (unless you are comparing to the civil annulment process that Britney Spears went through after her 55-hour first marriage).

Confusing? Yes, I know, but since I was a math major in college, please bear with me as I try to seek comparing apples to apples as much as possible.

Also, whenever I go to young adult ministry talks, it seems that the figure I hear mentioned is 50% of all marriages done today end in divorce, and that seems to be a constant figure since the early 1990s.

So I don’t know if it is just the Catholic population “catching up” in a sad way to the rest of society, or if it is just that divorce, once considered taboo by most of society, is now accepted/expected, to the point that marketing courses factor in divorce and remarriage as an expected part of the life cycle and there is actually a “Divorce” magazine that I actually saw at the local food store.

 

[bobzills]

The number of divorces in 1930 - is this for Catholics only or total in America?.

This is the total number of divorces in the USA.
What am I comparing here?
I am comparing the comparison between these two things:

1. The increase in the divorce rate in the USA from 1930 to recently.
2. The increase in the number of annulments given out by the RCC from 1930 to recently.

 

[Norseman82]

This is the total number of divorces in the USA.
What am I comparing here?
I am comparing the comparison between these two things:

1. The increase in the divorce rate in the USA from 1930 to recently.
2. The increase in the number of annulments given out by the RCC from 1930 to recently.

Thanks, although it would be interesting to see the divorce rate among Catholics during that period in time so we can compare if they followed the general trend all along (which would show that the annulment rate per divorce really has gone up) or if the rate of divorce among Catholics has skyrocketed to catch up to the general population during that period (which would show if the annulment rate per divorce was constant).

 

[bobzills]

Thanks, although it would be interesting to see the divorce rate among Catholics during that period in time so we can compare if they followed the general trend all along (which would show that the annulment rate per divorce really has gone up) or if the rate of divorce among Catholics has skyrocketed to catch up to the general population during that period (which would show if the annulment rate per divorce was constant).

Concerning divorce, please see the article in the Catholic journal: Homiletic and Pastoral Review, December 2005 entitled: American Annulment Mills
By Robert J. Kendra
“A worse problem for the Church is complicity in promoting divorce. 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. However, faced with this request, tribunal officials respond that a divorce is required prior to accepting an application for annulment, allegedly to assure that the marriage is irreconcilable. But Jesus clearly condemned divorce even without remarriage, “Therefore, what God has joined together let no man put asunder” (Mk 10:9), and canon 1060 stipulates, “in doubt the validity of a marriage must be upheld until the contrary is proven.” Therefore, a tribunal must prejudge the marriage to be invalid prior to judging its validity, in order to justify a divorce preceding an annulment. Assurances of obtaining an easy annulment, given by the pro-annulment pastoral tribunals to perplexed petitioners (little or no effort is made toward reconciling the couple), actually precipitates the divorce. Once divorce is granted, which is a given with no-fault divorce laws, the tribunal is programmed to grant an annulment.”
Please see the whole article at:
marysadvocates.org/Kendra.html

 

[JRKH]

I have a few things to say.

First, the whole 90% figure people keep throwing out. Just because 90% of marriages sent to tribunals are judged null doesn’t mean 90% of marriages are null. You have to filter that. First, through the number of marriages that actually break up. Then through people who actually seek an annulment. Then through the number of cases that actually make it through a parish priest to be presented to the tribunal. Those filters reduce that number significantly each time. You cannot extrapolate that figure to make it seem as though 90% of people are in invalid marriages.

If you take the stat that 50% of marriages end in divorce (even catholics), and apply it to that 90% annulment rate stat, you get 45%. So 45% of catholic marriages are judged invalid? But remember that not all catholic divorces are put up for annulment, so filter that again. Consider that maybe 80% of the catholic divorces get put up for annulment, that stat turns to 36% of catholic marriages are judged invalid. But wait, not all annulments make off the ground past the priest. Then you apply the filter that maybe 70% of cases brought to a priest get processed, and you get 25% of catholic marriages are judged not valid. But not all annulments are made on the grounds of impediments to marriage. Many are judged null because they didn’t have canonical form (not married in a church, etc). So you can further filter that by assuming that maybe 70% of cases brought to tribunal aren’t decided because of lack of canonical form, and you get about 17.6%. So once you’ve filtered that down, you get that maybe 18% of catholic marriages are declared invalid because of factors that lead to impediments at the time of marriage. That’s not an incredibly high number, less than 20%. And frankly, I think the percentages I used were rather high, so I think in actuality that number is much, much lower. I doubt that 80% of catholics apply for annulments after divorce, or that 70% of those make it through the intial process. And many that do make it through because of lack of form. Even slight overstatements of those numbers will bring down that final percentage.

BRAVO!!!
EXCELLANT:thumbsup:

Thank you.