One of the trickiest balances in life is found in relation to justice and mercy. How does one reconcile the need for both? Too much emphasis on mercy and justice is not served. Too much emphasis on justice and mercy is not delivered.
God’s answer to this eternal problem was delivered on the cross. For that he dealt perfectly with sin (which called for justice) and his promise of redemption (which called for mercy). But we humans are not God and we tend to struggle with the balance. We see this so often in the law courts, in our economic life and so on and so forth.
This week Pope Francis set up a commission to streamline the annulment procedure. A move that put the cat amongst the pigeons on internet forums. How will the rulings of the commission affect the sacramental life of the church? Will there be such hunger for mercy -the admittance of the divorced and remarried to communion is what some even suggest- that any sense of justice will be lost?
People need to calm down. Firstly because the press release explicitly states that teaching regarding the indissolubility of marriage remains. Secondly because even if Pope Francis were the hippy radical the press paint him to be (which he is not) he lacks the power of an Anglican Synod. He cannot change Catholic teaching at whim or by a majority vote. It is protected.
What he can do- and I hope he does- is ensure the annulment process is efficient. For at present it can be cruel when a case is dragged from pillar to post due to bureaucratic process or incompetence. I know of a person who went to tribunal in 2010 and still awaits an answer. A situation pastorally unacceptable. Fortunately this is an exception- tribunals normally do a great job- but such a situation should not be possible at all.
The process can be improved then. After all what matters for the Church is not the process- but that every decision reached can be trusted. It is here that teaching on marriage lives or dies.
A caveat. Should the commission be so moronic as to allow individual parishes to decide cases it really is time for despair. For most parishes are not centres of excellence and cannot even be trusted to teach the faith let alone judge cases of marriage. But this seems a very, very remote possibility and the more likely scenario is a diocesan body equipped to make sound judgements quickly.
Let me repeat then. What matters is not the process itself but that we can trust decisions made. And given Christ’s promise that the Church would prevail – there is plenty of room for optimism at present. Personally I am predicting that this Synod on the family is not about to bring in a raft of liberalisation but will prove a new humane vitae. A reaffirmation of church teaching that leaves the world, the devil and the modernisers howling in despair.
Here’s something that confuses me. An annulment states that the marriage was never valid, right? There was some flaw in it that prevented it from being a complete, valid marriage.
But… shouldn’t that have been checked at the time, rather than waiting for an application to tribunal to be made what could be many years later?
Because if the validity of a marriage isn’t checked at the time, if a marriage that both parties think is valid can be retrospectively deemed to have not in fact been valid at all, then how can anyone be sure that their marriage is in fact valid and will never be found invalid by a tribunal?
I think if I were a married Roman Catholic I would want to apply as soon as possible after getting married to a tribunal to have my marriage investigated so that any problems they found that could be ground for annulment later could be fixed, thus ensuring that the marriage was definitely valid and could never be annulled. Is this ‘assurance of a valid marriage’ process possible?
Yes, a thorough background check is conducted by the Catholic priest officiating at the marriage, and an enquiry form fully completed, e.g. http://www.rcsouthwark.co.uk/PRENUPTIALFORM2-4CF.pdf by Archdiocese of Southwark. So almost all Catholic marriages are deemed to be valid. This is the same even if the ceremony takes place in a non-Catholic Church.
Difficulty can arise in relation to non-Catholic marriages in which one of the parties later wishes to join the Catholic Church, esp when divorce and remarriage is involved. Or when Catholic parties were married young and doubt arises over their understanding and consent.
Or when Catholic parties were married young and doubt arises over their understanding and consent
But this is exactly the kind of thing I mean; surely the understanding and consent would have been checked at the time?
I mean, I can understand that no checking procedure is perfect, but it seems to me that annulments should really be incredibly rare, to the extent that many priests could go through their entire careers without ever encountering someone who’s had one.
If that is not the case, if they are more common, then it would seem to me to indicate that the checking procedures in place are seriously flawed if so many invalid marriages are being conducted, and they should be tightened up as a matter of urgency.
After all as I said above, if checking procedures were that lax, how could any married Catholic be certain that their marriage was valid and could not be annulled at a later date?
(Also, what happens to children of an annulled marriage? Presumably, as their parents were never actually married, they are illegitimate? That seems another reason to make sure that annulments are vanishingly rare).
If you are an Anglican, do you think their clergy conduct as deep an investigation as their Catholic counterparts? When I was an Anglican priest, I certainly didn’t and couldn’t, as people had legal right to be married in their parish church and only limited grounds can be used to deny it. And indeed, many marriages that Catholic Tribunals have to investigate concern marriages conducted in non-Catholic churches.
Children born of an annulled marriage are still considered legitimate.
I’m not an Anglican, but I was aware that Roman Catholics don’t regard other marriages as valid (especially Scientology ones, usefully for the erstwhile former Mrs Cruise).
However, if a person who had been married outside the Roman denomination were to convert, surely one of the first things they would do is check their marriage was valid, according to what they now believe?
I assume Father Ed has checked that he is in fact validly married according to his new denomination, for example.
“the admittance of divorced people to communion is what some even suggest”
Father, divorced people are admitted to Holy Communion in the Catholic Church.
Divorced and remarried people are not.
Good point- I should check my posts more carefully.
It would help to have some figures.
What percentage of annulment applications are opposed by the other spouse?
What percentage of unopposed applications succeed? What percentage of opposed applications succeed?
In what percentage of applications was the marriage celebrated in a Roman Catholic church? In what percentage was it celebrated in a church of another denomination? In what percentage was there only a civil ceremony ?
What are the percentages of success for each of those three categories of ceremony?
Some of your questions will be answered by the fact that annulment is relevant only if the marriage was sacramental.
So annulment is not relevant in the case of any Anglican, Methodist, Presbyterian, or Baptist marriages?
Does that mean that such weddings cannot be annulled, or that they don’t need to be annulled because they are in general not valid ipso facto of being not sacramental?
As regards basic questions about annulment can I suggest the use of Google?
Articles such like this are helpful
http://www.americancatholic.org/Messenger/Sep1998/feature1.asp
A very interesting article. I noted this extract:
4) Informal cases (prior bond and defect of form). Annulments are given in other less complicated cases where it is not necessary to go to trial. For instance, if it is discovered that a man was validly married to someone else before he married the petitioner, but lied to his wife, the second marriage will be nullified on the grounds of ligamen, which is Latin for a “prior bond.” These cases are settled rather quickly in an administrative process which involves little more than documentary evidence.
The same type of administrative process is used when Catholics marry outside the Church. This is called a declaration of nullity based on a “defect of form.” The couple did not exchange vows before a priest and two witnesses in a Catholic church as is required by canon law. When Catholics fail to observe this law, the marriage is invalid. These “defect of form” cases account for more than half of all the annulments granted in the Catholic Church.
This means your parents weren’t married and neither are you. We could both get a nullity! It’s divorce by another name.
Not true. The Catholic Church does recognise all marriages- hence children are never viewed as illegitimate. However it would recognise- as do you- that yours was not contracted as a sacrament of the Catholic cburch.
This is incorrect. Apologies.
Please read the following from canonlawblog.wordpress.com:
“Not only is the sacramentality of a marriage NOT determined in an annulment case, the question of its sacramentality is not even RAISED in the process. The annulment process is about the validity of marriage and only about validity; a successful petition results in a “declaration of nullity”, not in a declaration of non-sacramentality. Experts must know and consistently present these distinctions if they are ever to help pew Catholics to understand first the fundamental juridic nature of all marriage and then the sacramentality of specifically Christian marriage.
Consider: if tribunals really regarded as null all marriages that were not “sacramental”, then no marriage between Jews, or between Muslims, or between Hindus, would be valid, for none of those marriages are sacramental. For that matter, no marriage between a Catholic and any non-baptized person would be valid, for such marriages are not regarded as sacramental, even when they are entered into in accord with canon law! This is nonsense, of course..”
So are you saying that so long as the first marriage wasn’t a sacrament of the RC church, then you can be remarried to someone else sacramentally?
It reminds me of our neighbour in Chile, Guillermo, who had a sacramental wife and a civic wife.
How so? When clearly this would be a mortal sin according to church teaching?
Any sacrament to be valid needs proper intention, form and substance. I think there are many who received Anglican marriages accepting that divorce is permissible- given that this is now official teaching. This would render the sacrament invalid as their intention was not for life and for worse as well as better.
When you married Hayley, you would have been aware of the availability of divorce in England, but you still promised ’till death do us part’ – and meant it. I suspect that nearly every couple makes that promise sincerely at the time. It’s only later when problems arise that they think of divorce.
By the way, if you are not married sacramentally, will you be arranging for this to be done?
Any sacrament to be valid needs proper intention, form and substance.
Are there any Anglican weddings which do meet these criteria, or are they all per se defective in form and therefore voidable?
Say two Anglicans get married, in an Anglican ceremony, with proper intention. Later on one of them becomes a Roman Catholic. Then they get a civil divorce. The Roman Catholic one meets another nice Roman Catholic of the opposite sex and wishes to marry them. They apply to tribunal for an annulment on the grounds that even though their previous marriage had proper intention, it lacked proper form because in was an Anglican not a Roman service and therefore was not sacramental.
Would an annulment be granted in such circumstances? Should it be granted?
S – you are misinformed when you write that the Catholic Church does not regard marriages contracted outwith the Church as valid.
There is a rule for ‘Catholics’ (in communion with the Roman pontiff) that they can only contract a Catholic marriage if this is done in the canonically correct way – with a priest as the witness,or a dispensation from the bishop or a convalidation ceremony were it to be the case that no clergy were available.
This only affects those who claim to be Catholics.Thus a person who claims to be Catholic could marry in a registrar’s office,divorce and then,all other things being equal, marry someone else in a Catholic church.
This ,in no way, affects the Catholic church’s recognition of the validity or otherwise of marriages contracted outwith the Church by non-Catholics.
Fr Ed, unfortunately it is not as simple as you state. I was divorced when I became a catholic. I had been married at the age of 21 in a Baptist church, where we were taught that sacraments did not exist, merely ‘ordinances’ of which there were only two – Believers Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. I did not believe that my marriage was a sacrament or even understand what this meant. When I wanted to remarry I applied for an annulment. This was not granted on the grounds that I could not produce any independent witnesses of my state of mind at the time of my marriage 30 years previously. My fiancee, who was a catholic and had been previously married in a registry office to an anglican was given an immediate statement of nullity. I gave up and married in a registry office.
When I wanted to remarry I applied for an annulment.
This is interesting. So you think that your first marriage was not valid?
Doesn’t that mean that, if you hadn’t got divorced, you would now be living in an invalid marriage?
Could there be lots of people in that situation — living in an invalid marriage without realising it?
Oh dear, I think you have opened a can of worms here Ed. You can’t have it both ways. Either Anglican orders are “null and void” from the RC point of view, which raises questions about the status of Anglican marriages. Or they are sound, as are the marriages (and other sacraments).
It’s not actually to do with the validity of orders . It’s to do with parties marrying according to ther proper form at the time whatever that may be. If they are the marriage is considered sacramental and hence valid. Hence an Anglican who marries another non Catholic in an Anglican church, another Christian Church or indeed in a register office is validly married in the eyes of the Catholic church becasue they were validly married in the eyes of their own church/denomination/ eyes of the state etc. However that wouldn’t apply to a Catholic marrying in any of these forums without a dispensation becasue the marriage would not be according to proper form for a Catholic UNLESS it had been dispensed. So in answer to S’s question about the two Anglicans one of whom subsequently converts yes they would be validly maried and would not get an annulment unless one of the “usual” grounds for an annulment existed(lack of proper intention, duress etc). This would cover those who get married as Anglicans not intending to remain faithful for life/not intending to be open to children etc and that is irrespective also of whatever the “official teaching” is of whichever denomination (or not) was involved. So Fr. Ed is, I think we can safely assume, validly – and sacramentally – married. Also given that a ground for nullity is lack of consummate it’s difficult to see how a priest could check that in advance of the marriage!
I should also of course point out that sacramental marriages – irrespective of where the wedding took place – can only arise between two Christians i.e. the parties have been baptised. hence a marriage between a Catholic and a non- Christian is valid but not sacramental and can be dissolved according to the Pauline privilege. As baptism has become less common this has become a growth area in canonical jurisprudence or so I understand.
Good point.
Whether Anglican orders are ‘null and void’ or not has nothing to do with they the sacrament of marriage as understood by the Catholic church.The ministers of the sacrament are the couple.
The priest is there as a witness,not as the minister.
I’m sorry for the man who married in the Baptist church,whose marriage was obviously recognised as ‘valid’ by the Catholic church,as he was unable to convince the annulment authories that he didn’t know what he was doing at the time of his marriage.Obviously for his next partner who was claiming to be Catholic (and I’m not doubting for one moment that she was a baptised Catholic) the annulment was granted automatically because she had(presumably in full knowledge of the facts)married outside of the Church.
Just as civil authorities require certain forms to be followed to establish what the state understands by a valid civil marriage,so also does the Catholic church expect certain forms to be followed.If they are not,then there is no valid ‘sacramental’ marriage.All other things being equal the person who claims to be Catholic and who can prove this ,is entitled to be married according to Catholic rites,assuming (normally) that they are also free to marry in the eyes of the state in which they live.
Thought I’d go off on a limb here and raise a question about what you actually said in your post.
You say the tribunal process could more efficient. Later you said that tribunals do a great job and that you dreaded the prospect of parishes being given the power to take decisions. So does this mean all the tribunals have to do is get decisions out a bit quicker. Do they have the resources to do this? And if the answer is one of capacity how can that be addressed?