The Annulment of a Marriage
Guest editorial by Michael Shackleton – Christ said: A man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and the two shall become one. So they are no longer two but one. What therefore God has joined together, let no man put asunder (Mt 19:5).

“The Holy Father wants to show charity and mercy towards those stuck in a kind of marital purgatory, as their patience is tested in the wait for a verdict of nullity. “
“The Holy Father wants to show charity and mercy towards those stuck in a kind of marital purgatory, as their patience is tested in the wait for a verdict of nullity. “
His solemn words are echoed in canon 1060 of the Code of Canon Law, which upholds the Church’s teaching that the valid marriage bond cannot be dissolved. Consequently, if any doubts arise concerning its validity, that bond remains intact until the contrary can be proved.
Proving the contrary in cases when a couple possibly married out of fear, force or fraud, or simple immaturity, has become a difficult task over time. A tribunal set up by the diocesan bishop to investigate the challenge to validity, employs the cold letter of the law, a dispassionate and intrusive means of searching out many personal and intimate details of a couple’s relationship before and in marriage. This can drag on for years because of legal niceties or major obstacles.
Often it happens that either or both of the spouses have not the patience to await an ecclesiastical decision on whether their marriage has been annulled or not. They just walk away and, alas, ignore the Church’s judgment.
As we report in this issue, Pope Francis, who has made no secret of his desire to show the compassionate face of the Church to its alienated members, has now issued a document to simplify the way the validity of a dubiously solemnised marriage can be questioned.
It affects not only the Latin-rite Church but also the Eastern Catholic Churches. The pope wants the annulment procedure to be easier and quicker, not because he is promoting the nullity of marriages but because he does not want couples to be in stressful doubt for prolonged periods.
The canonical way of deciding whether a marriage is valid or not requires a court to be set up which needs the skills of competent canon lawyers. On the one side there is the promoter of justice who argues on behalf of the spouse petitioning for nullity. On the other side there is the defender of the bond who argues to prove that the marriage remains a valid one.
Like any other kind of court of justice, there is also the judge, the witnesses and the documentary evidence, all of which can be intellectually and emotionally draining for those who anticipate a favourable outcome.
Now Pope Francis has provided new rules to replace the provisions of canons 1671-1691. These may not do away with the forum of the procedure but they will make it considerably simpler and cheaper for a petition for nullity to go ahead and be swiftly dealt with. Each case, of course, will be treated on its merits, and some applications may demand a longer procedure than others.
We can expect sighs of relief from clergy and laity who have experienced the frustrations and complexities of a lengthy attempt to prove nullity.
The Holy Father wants to show charity and mercy towards those stuck in a kind of marital purgatory, as their patience is tested in the wait for a verdict of nullity.
Byzantine Catholic Bishop Dimitrios Salachas, who served on the pope’s advisory commission, welcomed the new rules, saying they were urgent for the Eastern Church in order to keep Catholics in it. His input could well have influenced the pope’s new rules, considering that a large percentage of Greek Catholics are married to members of the Orthodox Church which permits second marriages under special penitential conditions. Catholics who have divorced an Orthodox spouse cannot wait years for a declaration of nullity, he said. They begin a second union in the Orthodox Church.
The changes will go into effect on December 8, the opening day of the Year of Mercy.
We shall wait and see if this new papal document has any pastoral influence on next month’s Synod on the Family
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