Fr. Thomas M. Pastorius June 19, 2016 Spiritual Ponderings Thoughts on Annulments
We return again this week to the sometime difficult topic of the Catholic Church’s teaching about Annulment. As I stated when I first started this series of reflection, I wanted to tackle this topic after listening to others who had gone it through describe it as a process that brought a lot of healing into their lives. For help with this I am turning to Rev. Ronal T. Smith’s book called Annulment: A Step-By-Step Guide for Divorced Catholics. (Quotes from his book will be in bold)
5. Annulments do not make the children illegitimate I was told by a cannon lawyer once that one of the main reasons that a person does not seek an annulment is because they fear that their children will be considered illegitimate. The cannon lawyer went onto state that this is not the case. In Church law it states that any child whose parents’ marriage is decreed annulled is still consider legitimate. He went on to explain that the word “legitimate” means something like “declared legal” and therefore if the laws says they are legitimate then they are legitimate.
If questions arise, please do not try to represent yourself as your own lawyer even if it is only in your head. Take time to talk to someone who really knows what he or she is talking about. There are many times that I take the time to consult with two or three priests before making a decision because I know that I am not perfect and I do not know everything.
Since an annulment is a judgment solely of the Catholic Church, it is a solely a spiritual matter. It has no civil effects on the children or the parties involved. This is one of the reasons a person must have obtained a civil divorce before the Catholic diocesan marriage tribunal will consider the case. The Catholic Church cannot annul a marriage that is still recognized as valid by a civil jurisdiction.
6. It is fair for Catholics to expect Non-Catholics to go through annulment. It may seem unfair that a non-Catholic is required to go through the Catholic Church’s annulment procedure in order to marry a Catholic in the Catholic Church. The Church requires this, however, because it values the permanence and the sanctity of marriage between all couples, not just between Catholic Christians.
A couple of key Church teachings come into play here. The first is that the priest or deacon only witnesses the marriage and that it is the two spouses that celebrate the wedding (that are the ministers of the wedding). It is through their exchange of consent that the marriage comes about and not through the words of the priest or deacon. In other words, I cannot stand on a street corner and grab a random guy or a random girl and declare them to be husband and wife with any legal or religious implications. They do not become husband and wife but rather they remain complete strangers who have just shared an experience of running into a religious crazy on a street corner.
We believe that Protestant couples who intend to inter into marriage are just as capable of entering into marriage as two Catholic people are. Therefore the marriage of two Protestants is considered valid until proven otherwise. This is why they need to go receive an annulment also. There are many non-Catholic couples who show that they have the ability to commit themselves to each other in good times and in bad and the Church needs to uphold the sanctity of marriage as it upholds the validity of the oath of a soldier, a doctor, a President of the United States, etc.
7. The Time of Annulment Takes Depends on the Participation. There is no doubt about it that our generation has become spoiled by how fast information can travel in our world today. We have devices in our hands that allow us to send a signal into space to a satellite which tells that satellite to contact another person on the earth (and this person could be thousand miles away). There are some things that you cannot speed up like home cooking, spending time with a love one, etc. without it affecting the quality. The Church prefers quality over speed and so she insists on handwritten communication instead of e-mail. She insists on talking with the people involve instead of watching five minute “audition tapes”. This also ensures that the people involved both know who is giving the testimony and that confidentiality is protected. The fast the people turn in the items that are request for the faster the process moves along. If the Church has to wait for each deadline to expire the process will take longer.