Vague criteria for annulments

[YADA]

For the posters on this thread that care to answer I am curious to know:

1: How many people do you know who filed for a Catholic annulment and of those, how many were granted and how many were not?

2: Were you ever a witness in the process for someone hoping to procure an annulment and what was your experience as one?

Mary.

I received an affirmative annulment decision - my marriage - me: Baptized Christian Non-Catholic, my Ex: Unbaptized non-Catholic - marriage performed by a Justice of the piece … 15 years - 3 kids … met in the military and married in 5 weeks … Are you surprised that the marriage was declared to be a non Sacramental Union ?..
My spouse was a non Baptized person who married a Catholic [one dropped out of high school - one dropped out of college - they knew each other about 5 months before the wedding] because of pregnancy - impending childbirth tended [at least back in the day] to compel people to the altar. They were married by a priest … 4 children later they divorced … but the length of time and number of children never changed the conditions that existed at the time of the marriage. Are you surprised that the marriage was declared to be a non Sacramental Union?..

Neither of us was happy about our failed marriages -

I know a person - Lutheran who was divorced and dating a Catholic - Their case **did not **receive a an affirmative decision - the Tribunal found that their first marriage performed in the Lutheran Church was indeed Sacramental

Not one of these marriages was a strictly Catholic marriage … only one of the parties was a catholic - that’s 3 marriages - 6 people - I Catholic, 3 non-Catholic Christians and 2 Non Christians … of the three marriages only one was performed by a priest and that was a marriage between two teenagers expecting a child

So with statistics like that - extrapolate the 35,000 - 40,000 affirmative Annulments …

Discounting “Church” weddings **each year **- In the United States of America - How many marriages are performed before:

Justices of the Peace,
at City Hall,
By County Clerks,
By Judges,
In Reno,
In Las Vegas
By “Uncle Billie” who went on line - paid the fee - became licensed in 5 minutes by the State to perform weddings - you can do this in Oregon

And you wonder why so many Annulments are granted? I am always amazed why the premise is that these are all Catholic marriages between two Catholics - as the norm … my guess is it maybe few in reality - I wish they would post the detailed statistics - even by denomination - or non Christian status of those people at the time of the marriage in question …

 

[manualman]

For the posters on this thread that care to answer I am curious to know:

1: How many people do you know who filed for a Catholic annulment and of those, how many were granted and how many were not?

2: Were you ever a witness in the process for someone hoping to procure an annulment and what was your experience as one?

My only close experience was that my parents divorced when I was 30 years old… and received a declaration of nullity! I was not invited to testify and know few details of the case, which bothers me, but I also respect my parents decision not to use storytelling as a way to get us kids to take one side or the other.

I do know that they deliberately used ABC for a couple years after the wedding with the intent not to get pregnant, but AFAIK neither had the defective intent to NEVER have kids on the wedding day. Both were certainly immature at the time (who isn’t in their early 20’s).

The thing that bothered me about the whole deal was that as I understand it, my testimony wasn’t needed or relevant because only the conditions at the time of the wedding mattered. 30 YEARS passed after the wedding day and none of it was relevant? A defect present on the wedding day could easily have been resolved during those years and the tribunal wouldn’t know because they didn’t ask? If the couple confects the sacrament on each other, then doesn’t a union that is not a valid due to a defect on the wedding day become valid upon the later removal of that defect and subsequent living out of marriage life? Seems like defective theology to me to focus only on conditions present on the wedding day and ignore what came afterwards.

I do think that nullity declarations in such cases are scandalous at best, fraudulent at worst.

 

[ack]

A defect present on the wedding day could easily have been resolved during those years and the tribunal wouldn’t know because they didn’t ask? If the couple confects the sacrament on each other, then doesn’t a union that is not a valid due to a defect on the wedding day become valid upon the later removal of that defect and subsequent living out of marriage life? Seems like defective theology to me to focus only on conditions present on the wedding day and ignore what came afterwards.

I do think that nullity declarations in such cases are scandalous at best, fraudulent at worst.

Although the couple confers the sacrament on each other, canonical form must be met for the marriage to take place.

I remember a similar concern raised on this forum a few years ago by a scrupulous person, who was worried that they had accidentally become married to a partner they were shacking up with because they had intended for their relationship to be lifelong. The answer, of course, was that this is impossible because a marriage can only take place in the context of a canonically valid wedding.

 

[dans0622]

…The thing that bothered me about the whole deal was that as I understand it, my testimony wasn’t needed or relevant because only the conditions at the time of the wedding mattered. 30 YEARS passed after the wedding day and none of it was relevant? A defect present on the wedding day could easily have been resolved during those years and the tribunal wouldn’t know because they didn’t ask? If the couple confects the sacrament on each other, then doesn’t a union that is not a valid due to a defect on the wedding day become valid upon the later removal of that defect and subsequent living out of marriage life? Seems like defective theology to me to focus only on conditions present on the wedding day and ignore what came afterwards.

I do think that nullity declarations in such cases are scandalous at best, fraudulent at worst.

Hello,

It’s not that the following 30 years are irrelevant but it is thought that the Parties themselves, and witnesses who were present at the time of the courtship and wedding, will be able to provide the needed details on those years.

As for an invalid marriage becoming valid: yes, it is possible. But, if the invalidity (and the defective consent) itself can be proven, then the Parties have to express their consent again in accord with canonical form (see canon 1159).

Dan

 

[His_helpmeet]

I am becoming increasingly disturbed by some of the vague reasons that I hear given for annulments. Reasons like “psychological immaturity” sound extremely dubious to me. I have no problem at all with the concept of annulments, but it had always been my understanding that they should only be granted in a few, very specific circumstances. For example:

• One or both spouses intends from the beginning to not be faithful, to **never **have children, or to not stay married for life
• The marriage was never consummated
• The spouses were forced or pressured into the marriage
• The woman was pregnant before the wedding and they got married **only **because of the pregnancy
• One spouse withholds a grave secret from the other, like some sort of criminal activity, the fact that they are actually gay, etc.
• One spouse was previously married and the marriage was not annulled
• They get married for an obviously wrong reason, like an immigrant getting married **only **to stay in the country, someone getting married **only **to escape an abusive home, and so on

I know there are probably other valid reasons for an annulment, too, but it needs to be something along the same lines as the list above. It seems to me that if one or more of these criteria are met, the marriage probably wouldn’t last very long anyway. But in reading Catholic blogs and forums, I keep hearing stories of people married many years with several children who still get annulments. It seems to me that if two baptized Catholics get married in the Church, go through marriage prep, try their best to follow church teachings, stay married for many years and have several children, there is a 99% chance the marriage is valid.

This doesn’t mean they won’t get divorced. But if they do get divorced, they need to stay single for life unless their spouse dies or they reconcile. Re-marriage without an annulment is adultery, full stop, and shouldn’t be allowed. I am NOT arguing that they should be allowed to remarry. But I do think that vague psychobabble B.S. has no place in annulments.

Once I posted on this forum about some problems in my marriage, and a couple people suggested that my marriage might be invalid. I found this EXTREMELY offensive. It was very disturbing how quickly people jumped to that conclusion. When we got married, my husband and I were both devout, practicing Catholics who married in the Church, dated for several years before marriage, talked about absolutely everything, and obeyed all Church teachings. If our marriage isn’t valid, no marriage is valid.

The bottom line is that it should not be that hard to contract a valid marriage! It should not be something only for super-holy elite Catholics with PhDs in the Theology of the Body.

Generally, a marriage is considered valid until proven otherwise, as long as there is not a glaring impediment that can be proven “on paper” (e.g. being too closely related, being Catholic and being married outside the Church without dispensation, already being married to someone else, etc.).

My expectation (and I have known people who have been in situations such as these) is that many of the declarations of nullity we see given today are due to a handful of factors, most of which will not apply to most practicing, well-catechized Catholics:

1. Fallen-away Catholics who married outside the Church and divorced
2. Non-Catholics who are divorced and either remarried and wish to become Catholic, or wish to marry a Catholic (my husband fell into the latter category; he received a declaration of nullity and we are sacramentally married; he converted to Catholicism during his first marriage but was not Catholic at the time of the marriage)
3. Poorly catechized Catholics who have divorced

This would mean that the majority of people who have applied for a declaration of nullity likely had little to no understanding of the Catholic definition of marriage in the first place. Keep in mind, though, that this is just my opinion, though I have known a couple of people who received declarations of nullity. They were non-Catholics at the time of their first marriages and divorces.

 

[MJJean]

My only close experience was that my parents divorced when I was 30 years old… and received a declaration of nullity! I was not invited to testify and know few details of the case, which bothers me, but I also respect my parents decision not to use storytelling as a way to get us kids to take one side or the other.

I do know that they deliberately used ABC for a couple years after the wedding with the intent not to get pregnant, but AFAIK neither had the defective intent to NEVER have kids on the wedding day. Both were certainly immature at the time (who isn’t in their early 20’s).

The thing that bothered me about the whole deal was that as I understand it, my testimony wasn’t needed or relevant because only the conditions at the time of the wedding mattered. 30 YEARS passed after the wedding day and none of it was relevant? A defect present on the wedding day could easily have been resolved during those years and the tribunal wouldn’t know because they didn’t ask? If the couple confects the sacrament on each other, then doesn’t a union that is not a valid due to a defect on the wedding day become valid upon the later removal of that defect and subsequent living out of marriage life? Seems like defective theology to me to focus only on conditions present on the wedding day and ignore what came afterwards.

I do think that nullity declarations in such cases are scandalous at best, fraudulent at worst.

Trust me, if your parents annulment paperwork was anything like mine, the Church has full details of their marriage up to and including their sexual practices! The questions on the forms are very detailed including many questions about each spouses childhood and family, their adolescence, their adulthood, the courtship and the early years of the marriage as well as what happened during the latter years of marriage. There isn’t anything they don’t ask!

I think in most cases children, even adult children, are poor nullity witnesses. Usually, parents keep things from their kids that they don’t want them to know about each other or themselves. Those things are usually told to or witnessed by their family and/or peers.

For example, my kids are too young to remember their father hitting me. They also had no clue there were many infidelities on both sides starting a mere few weeks after the ceremony and continuing throughout the whole “marriage”.

I have a friend who saw his parents divorce in his teens because his father was gay. His father knew he was gay and was practicing his lifestyle, but thought he had to marry because he worked at a Catholic university. The wife didn’t have a clue until after they were married. My friend and his sister thought their parents marriage and their family life idyllic right up until the divorce was final. They stayed married and kept everything hidden as long as they did because of the children, but when the kids were almost grown the parents couldn’t take any more.

I could go on with examples of people who divorced after many years of marriage and child rearing who were in invalid marriages as marriage is defined by the Church, but the whole point is that even the children and adult children often don’t have any real idea of what goes on or has gone on in their parents marriages and that it’s not uncommon for people in invalid marriages to stick it out as long as they can or until the youngest child reaches adulthood or near adulthood.