What does that mean exactly, “in some cases” it amounts to “more than 95 percent”?
Hi Kirane
Those are statistics worldwide for that particular year. The statistics vary from year to year and from place to place. When I said in some cases the approval rate is more than 95% I was referring to the United States of America and the Roman Catholic tribunals in some areas of the United States of America. For example, according to the
This is a good attitude and I wish that more Catholics would have it and try to make their marriages work instead of taking the easy way out as supplied by the annulment theory of the Roman Catholic Church. Why do so many Catholics refuse to take their marriage vows seriously and assert that they did not know what they were doing at the time when they took their marriage vows? It looks like they might be mentally defective or something when they claim “defect of consent”. Doesn’t that mean that they went through all the business of getting everyone together for their marriage ceremony, they went to the Church, they sat through a Mass, and they exchanged their vows and lived as husband and wife for several years, and had a family together, but then after all that, they decided that they were mentally defective at the time of the marriage ceremony and they had defect of consent? And it is at an enormous rate in the USA of about 50 to 60,000 annulments gratned per year, and the majority of them are based on this defect of consent excuse. Is that the kind of excuse that God looks favorably upon after a couple has undergone several years of married life together? Why were they enjoying these marital relations if they knew that they were mentally defective at the time of the exchange of vows?Hi Kirane
I respect what the catholic in their practise. I do not see eye to eye of what other denomination is doing is wrong or not. Simply becoz i’m not in the capacity to say that. My church teaching to me as a protestant is to be kind and loving to others and walk the kind of live that will make god happy. I’m not a strong christian as everyone do, but i just know what will make god happy and what will not make him happy…
Correct.
But this goes to the very heart of the matter. If I freely make a vow to God, I am obligated to fulfill it, if at all possible. I do have control over that. The behavior of others, especially their sinfulness, has no bearing on my responsibility to fulfill my obligation to God.
As I already indicated, I will leave the discussion of porneia to others. I will not debate that here as it should have a thread of its own.
You are correct, Kay Cee, with the condition, as you state it, “if at all possible.”
Sir,
Have you picked up an American newspaper within the last few years and read anything about the “scandals”. It is a different story when something like this or when an unjust annulment hits and wrecks your family.
Of course it can. I can be faithful to my husband even if he is not faithful to me.
I took him as my husband, forsaking all others. It’s true he can leave, and I have no control over that. However, I can still forsake all others. He would still be my husband, whether or not we live together. Even apart, he would be my husband for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health. I would still forsake all others. I would still be fulfilling the vow.
That is a different situation. That is a situation between two parties. My marriage vows are between three parties, myself, my husband, and God. If my husband violates his vows, he would be sinning against God, and what God does to him about it has no bearing on me. I am still faithful. God is faithful to me, and I am still keeping my vow to him.
Hello Malachi,
Hello Malachi,
Well, whatever you want to call it, divorce or annulment or loopholes, it amounts to the same thing in the real world. First there is a couple professing their love for each other. Then they go through the trouble and spend time setting up a date for the wedding, then various people are invitede to the ceremony which can take place at Mass in a Catholic Church, then they obtain a license which will make the marriage official and legal in the eyes of the state, then the vows are exchanged and the priest announces that they are husband and wife, then they have a big party and celebration and receive congratulations from their friends, then they live together as husband and wife for a time and perhaps raise a family and have children. Up to now there has been no question of any defect or any reason as to why they should not be married, however, sometime later problems arise in the marriage, such as infidelity or incompatibility or problems with the children and the couple decides that they want to get a divorce and marry someone else, but at the same time they want to be able to receive the Sacraments of the Catholic Church. So they go to a Church lawyer who figures out a loophole according to which they can claim that at the time of the wedding ceremony there was a defect of consent - that is a mental state in which they did not give proper consent to the wedding ceremony ten years ago. Now this would have never come up except for the fact that problems had arisen in the marriage. So they are told to obtain a civil divorce and after that they apply for the annulment and get it and they are free to remarry. So in either case of a divorce or an annulment, the family unit has been broken and the couple are free to remarry. There is really no difference at all in the real situation as the children suffer the same problems associated with family breakups in either case.
If you look at something like the Pauline Privilege in which two non-baptised people marry and later one is baptised into the faith that is grounds for a marriage to be declared null. No where does St. Paul say, “unless children have been born and might suffer”. If this is your only argument against annulment, it fails.
Kay Cee, as presented in scripture, the marriage bond is primarily a physical bond. Of course, the husband has the responsibility to teach his wife in spiritual matters, but the primary focus of marriage is the physical bond. That man (and woman) not be physically alone, that they leave and cleave, that the man is the head, that they honor and love, that they not deny each other physically—it is a physical bond in a physical world.
Study the passages; they speak for themselves.
I do not want you take my word for it; investigate it. What is a waste of time is debating the meaning on this forum. Lookup the word in a N.T. Greek Lexicon; there is nothing to debate.
This points out the difference between us. I am concerned about the children suffering from a marital breakup and from a wrecked family life, however, you don;t seem to care and don’t think it is relevant to what God expects from married people.
My parents had a civil divorce when I was an infant and my mother had the marriage declared as null when I was six years old. It took that long. I feel blessed that my mother never remarried and devoted herself fully to raising her children. I can assure you in her case, the marriage on my father’s part was null from the beginning. Apparently, the paperwork for the annulment process is to remain private but as a teenager I found copies of my mom’s papers she had given to the tribunal when I was looking for a birth certificate in her closet. I don’t know why other marriages are declared null in the Church but I can vouch for this one.
I posted awhile back but I have been just quietly reading for awhile. I finally decided to speak up again. This quote references the common mistake among Protestants in Scriptural interpretation. I referenced this waaaay back in the thread.
Yes I am. This is the question: how many cases of the Pauline privilege have been granted in the years since Vatican II and how does it compare with the number of people involved in getting annulments in the RCC, which is way over two million annulled people in the USA alone since Vatican II? I submit to you that if you compare the number of people involved in divorces granted by the RCC via the Pauline privilege, with the number of people involved in RC annulments in the USA, you will be comparing something like the rippling of water in a teacup with the rippling of waves of water in the Hurricane Katrina and the damages caused will be analogous.