Why does the catholic church allow so many annulments?

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Huh?

I’m saying the divorce rate in the Philippines is 0% because of the catholics in power there. Have you ever seen Cardinal Sin’s house? Its larger then a city block. Anyways, the citizens are just stagnant because they usually just live in sin, with no legal relations at all. The members don’t live to the standards of the church because the standards they created are just wierd. You have to prove that mommy and daddy were insane during their wedding. The stories make for a good laugh, if you have a twisted mind like that.

Another “tradition” that’s been developed because of all this is that many people choose not to get married at all because they know there is no way for a divorce or annulment at all. So they would rather just co habitate if ever their relationship falls apart like it tends to happen ever so often.
 
1ke said:
It is no more “legalism” than the requirement of water and the correct Trinitarian formula for a valid baptism to occur. It simply is.
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Baptismal formula comes from Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition. Decree of nullity is a post schism invention of Rome.
 
Not sure why this is the non-Catholic Religions section. Anyway, i share the OP’s frustration to an extent. My issue is not with annullments, but with the apparent ease with obtaining them.

Annullments are necessary. I recall my grandma telling me that her mother warned her as a child to stay well clear of males from certain families for fear of being abducted and forced to marry against their will. There was nothing that could be done because these certain people could do whatever they wanted because of they used convincing methods of intimidation to get what they wanted (Ok, yes. I’m talking about organized crime families). I can see granting an annulment in such a case.

However, when high school sweethearts marry willingly with a clear understanding of the sanctity and permanence of this sacrament; they have a seemingly happy marriage for several years until a certain incident occurs which splits them apart; and then they’re granted an annullment. Well, uh uh. I don’t buy it. I know that nobody held a gun to my parents head when they got married. They wanted to be married. Whatever happened after they got married should receive no consideration when granting an annulment.
 
falisrm said:
Exactly, i’m sure they weren’t crazy at the time either.
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It is not necessary to be “crazy” at the time of the marriage to have the marriage annulled.

The Archdiocese of Santa Fe has a nice explanation of the various grounds. The grounds themselves are:
  • Lack of Use of Reason
  • Lack of Due Discretion
  • Inability to Assume
  • Partial Simulation
  • Total Simulation
  • Fraud
  • Force and Fear
  • Error
 
falisrm said:
In other words, crazy.
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You’re right. How silly of the Church to codify all of this into canon law when they could just say “if you’re crazy you can get an annulment.”

And now I’m out of this thread. Obviously it’s not intended for an honest exchange of ideas.
 
falisrm said:
If the process was any easier through the Catholic church, i would have referred people to them. I myself knew over 100 cases where the couple wanted to legally seperate. The catholic church has some wierd idea that there is no such thing as divorce. Instead of making it a religious law, they created it as the laws of the land, preventing anyone to civilly divorce, even if your not Catholic. Annulment has to be one of the worst things i have ever seen in my life and i feel bad for those filipino’s who have no money or choice to do anything about it. Talk about hell on earth.
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Who are you responding to? Nobody else in this thread is talking about the situation in the Philippines. 🤷
 
Seriously then, how many people fall under those catagories, like 5 couples. Who in their right mind gets married out of fear? i would agree that would be grounds for annulment but this entire concept of annulment is rediculous in the first place. Who in the world is creating these rules in the first place?
 
There are times when annulments are necessary. The reasons have to do with the circumstances of the union at the time the “marriage” took place.
For instance, my husband had to obtain an annulment before we could marry in the Church. He had been married 11 years and had a child from that marriage. It was never really a marriage, to begin with. I won’t go into details except to say that his ex believed in abortion and extra-marital sex, both things that my husband had no idea that she would turn to.
Should he have stayed in an obviously unsacramental marriage just to avoid an annulment?
 
So, the wife was crazy, it doesn’t mean they were crazy during the wedding and the marriage never took place in the first place. They had a kid together, how in the world can you say the marriage never took place to begin with.
 
I don’t see why it can be said that no annullments should occur. What about the classic case where the man is drunk and doesn’t know what he is doing, waking up in bed with his supposed wife? Also, my wife is from the Philippines, and she knows of several cases where a married man came from the Philippines and married an American citizen in order to live in the U.S. These men still live now with a second wife in the U.S. without being found out. I would think legally the second marriage can be annulled since too it is invalid.
I have wondered myself why there are so many annullments in the United States. I concluded that in recent decades many people simply aren’t capable of marriage in the sort of psycho-social world we live in, where many peole aren’t capable of such a committment as they go through the ceremony, and indeed, where many don’t have an idea of what it actually is about other than an arrangement of convenience, perhaps temporary.
 
falisrm said:
Ya, can you believe it? a whopping 111 cases in 2007 were filed with the Catholic church. 80 million catholics…

This just proves my point.

newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/nation/view/20080106-110643/Marriage_annulments_down_last_year–Catholic_Church
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I’m not sure I understand the link, it doesn’t seem to be talking about the US. Am I misunderstanding something?

On the OP - I think this is a terribly difficult area. I have been in a very happy and committed marriage for 20 years and appreciate any defence of marriage. And yet I have seen friends’ marriage fail, and they go through dreadful pain trying to find a way through or out. Something that is relatively new is that the couple can afford to go their own ways, so I don’t think we’re seeing a change in moral attitides necessarily, but we are seening an ability of couples to separate. We have very few annulments in Europe, but the flip side is that people will continue to attend Catholic church when in a new partnership, but without an annullment (and the Church, of course, encourages people to stay).

I don’t think there is any easy answer to this one!

Michael
 
My experience with annulment is quite different. When my parents divorced after 32 years of marriage–my mom was denied an annulment.

So in my little world I would say they aren’t that easy to get and not just given to anyone.
 
To understand what falisrm is saying, it helps to know that annulment in the Philippines is a civil, as well as a church matter. In order to remarry, a separated Filipino (of any religion) has to get a declaration of nullity from a civil court. A common method is for the petitioner to claim impaired consent by reason of insanity. Also, it costs way too much for the average Filipino. So Filipino couples who separate often don’t bother, and many young couples will live together for a few years before marrying. My own neice falls into this second catagory.

But you should probably have just started another thread, falisrm.
 
Sublime_Prince said:
I really admire the Catholic Church on one hand for taking such a strong stance on marriage, but on the other hand it seems hypocritical to me to grant so many annulments.

I really don’t like the idea of annulments at all and think the church would be a lot better without them. Annulments are granted to anyone who wants them. Even people who have been married for over 25 years. How can the church say a marriage never existed when a couple was married for over 25 years ? To me this seems so ridiculous. I am not talking about abusive relationships here. I am talking about great marriages with kids, nice house, great family, many happy memories for 25 some years.

I have met all kinds of catholics who have been granted annulments and all of them seem to have had valid marriages in my eyes.

From my understand the most annulments are granted in the United States. I am not sure why this ever started, but my hunch is the Catholic Church did not want to loose popularity in the United States. If the church remained strict with annulments the amount of catholics in the US would be very small. Over 50% of us that are married end up getting a divorce. That would be a lot of unhappy Catholics if they were not allowed to remarry.
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You are asking a question that is complicated in the extreme and I am sure you have gotten many interesting and informative answers.
In a nutshell, the main reason, IMHO, is that too many catholics were poorly catechized and poorly prepared to enter into truly sacramental marriages. That does not mean that many of these marriages can’t or won’t work out just fine, but the time after Vat-II, and during the social upheavals of the sixties left many catholic young people confused and without as firm a foundation as we would have liked.

Hopefully we are turning a corner on this and in another 20 to 30 years the number of annulments will drop off.

As to the particulars of granting annulments, each marriage is looked at individually for the state of the people at the time of the marriage. It has little of nothing to do with subsequent happenings or changes within the marriage. So long as the person who is seeking the annulment is honest with the process, the decision will be a valid one.

I note from your profile and later post that you are protestant, yet your parents were granted a catholic annulment. Does this mean that you were raised catholic or did your parent/parents convert to catholicism after you were grown?

I’m also curious if you believe why your parents should have been denied an annulment. Surely they were already divorced when the annulment was granted. Do you think that they might not have gotten divorced if they couldn’t get an annulment? Or do you think they might have gotten back together?

Perhaps this is too personal, and you certainly don’t have to answer, but I get curious.

Peace
James
 
One thing that bothers me about annulment (here in the US) is the effect on children. The Catholic Church says the kids aren’t made illegitimate, but an awful lot of lay people say they are.

Someone posted in another thread that in the Episcopal Church, there is no limit on divorce and remarriage. That’s not exactly true. I spoke with my priest about this several years ago, and he said that a divorced person could only be remarried in the Episcopal Church with a dispensation from the bishop and the approval of the parish priest, and that guidelines were pretty strict. The person would have to have some counseling, and the priest would have to be convinced that they had learned from their mistakes, that they had feelings of “regard” for the former spouse (his word, not mine). IMO, the difference between this process and Catholic annulment is potentially the difference between admitting a mistake and denying that it happened.
 
masuwerte said:
One thing that bothers me about annulment (here in the US) is the effect on children. The Catholic Church says the kids aren’t made illegitimate, but an awful lot of lay people say they are.

Someone posted in another thread that in the Episcopal Church, there is no limit on divorce and remarriage. That’s not exactly true. I spoke with my priest about this several years ago, and he said that a divorced person could only be remarried in the Episcopal Church with a dispensation from the bishop and the approval of the parish priest, and that guidelines were pretty strict. The person would have to have some counseling, and the priest would have to be convinced that they had learned from their mistakes, that they had feelings of “regard” for the former spouse (his word, not mine). IMO, the difference between this process and Catholic annulment is potentially the difference between admitting a mistake and denying that it happened.
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There is no overarching rule in the Episcopal Church. we are not a bureaucratic institution. Each diocese pretty much determines these things. Our congregations are involved in what are the prevailing “rules” if you will. Laity has serious (name removed by moderator)ut in local practices. Bishops and priests are involved, but not determinative of actual local practices for the most part.

Catholic annulment is extraordinarily high in the US vis a vis the rest of the world. It is largely a US phenomenon as I have been told by Catholic religious. It has been widely criticized as being nothing more than a vehicle for sanctioning the divorces that are going on anyway. Not all are granted certainly, but it is but it is used far beyond it’s original intent so I am informed. It is something of an embarrassment according to religious I have spoken to. They regard it as merely a means to get around the remarriage prohibition for divorced persons. I’m sure it is well used in some cases, and not in others. I’m not sure if there is any correlation between wealth of the person seeking it or not. We are all aware of some publicized cases wherein the parties were married for significant periods and were members of large Catholic families. Surely the “not understanding the significant of the act” would be hard to apply to them I would think. I would wish that the Roman church might be more upfront as to the actual issues, but otherwise, hey, it accomplishes what needs be accomplished I suppose.
 
masuwerte said:
One thing that bothers me about annulment (here in the US) is the effect on children. The Catholic Church says the kids aren’t made illegitimate, but an awful lot of lay people say they are.

…
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Then there are “an awful lot of lay people” who need to be set straight. 😃
It’s a Church Proceeding dealing with a Church issue.
The Children are not made illegitmate.

Peace
James
 
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