Every year, Pope Benedict XVI gives a speech to the judges of the Roman Rota, a Vatican court that mainly handles marriage cases. He usually includes a warning about handing out annulments too easily, and Americans invariably assume that he’s talking about them. On this matter they may have a point: Vatican statistics say that more than 60% of annulments come from the United States.
Official Catholic teaching holds that marriage is for life, and hence divorce is not tolerated. Yet church law provides for an “annulment,” meaning a formal declaration that a marriage never existed, usually on the grounds that at least one of the parties lacked the capacity to give true consent. To secure an annulment, Catholics have to turn to church courts, which can be time-consuming and expensive.
Annulment has drawn a variety of criticisms over the years….
Divorce is not tolerated, according to the article.
Not quite true. It’s re-marriage subsequent to a divorce while an
ex-spouse is still living which is not tolerated.
Being married to a divorced woman, I have my own self-serving reasons for preferring the Episcopal Church’s permissive pastoral response to divorce and remarriage, to the RC annulment process. It has been the experience of some of my Roman Catholic friends with diocesan marriage tribunals that unless they are golfing buddies of the bishop, they encounter endless stalling and red tape.
But as I understand it, the intent of the RC procedure (in principle)– something that non-Catholics have a hard time understanding– is to determine whether the couple had ever been SACRAMENTALLY married. That question doesn’t even come into consideration, as far as I can tell, in the ECUSA canons on marriage, or on divorce and remarriage. ECUSA’s “teaching” on marriage has become such a free-for-all, it’s hard to tell whether we believe anything more than the state’s concept of marriage as a matter of contract law.
B’shalom,
Chuck
Biblically and traditionally, re-marriage after divorce is considered adultery (Luke 16:18, Matthew 19:9). ECUSA adopted its “permissive” or “pastoral” response to address a groundswell of divorce among its communicants– i.e., it made a conscious decision to ignore, or re-interpret, the Bible so that behavior once regarded as sinful is no longer treated that way. Direct correlation to ECUSA’s response to gay issues… .
“Direct correlation to ECUSA’s response to gay issues… . ”
… which is why, for consistency’s sake, the churches that have broken away from the Episcopal Church have all rejected remarriage after divorce as strongly as they have rejected full inclusion of homosexual people, right?
Sarcasm noted. I think it is true that some Re-Asserters, driven by prejudices, are very selective about exactly which Biblical injunctions they want to re-assert. They often ignore the ones that might — say — make adulteresses of their wives and mothers.
Being the golfing buddy of the bishop doesn’t help you get an annulment. Generally speaking, the time it takes reflects the legal requirements that must be met, as well as the case backlong, and the diocese’s ability to adequately staff their tribunal. But pastorchuckie is right, what the tribunal examines is whether or not the marriage was sacramentally valid, not whether the civil marriage actually occurred. If due to issues within the relationship the parties were unable to form a sacramental bond at the time of consent (the wedding), then despite their good intentions the couple was never sacramentally married. Thus, they are then able to marry in the church.
I think I would have a greater respect for the Roman Catholic position on the matter if they had a universal standard. But, from what I have witnessed, it is completely at the whim of the diocese. I know in Lincoln, NE, for example, annulments are basically non-existent unless it is literally a case of someone marrying their brother or something. In Joliet, IL, however, they hand them out like candy. I even know people who have moved to Joliet for the precise reason of getting an annulment in that Diocese.
That having been said, I will now attempt to pull the plank out of my own eye after attending to the speck in another’s eye. Certainly the Episcopal church has zero coherent standards on divorce and remarriage. There is more than one bishop who has been divorced more than once.
The lax praxis is not founded on any coherent theology; it was literally a case of looking around one Sunday back in the 70’s and realizing that 50%+ of the people in the pews were divorced and not allowed to do anything because of it. Someone said the oft repeated, “We need a pastoral response!!!” which is code word for look the other way until we figure out a way to self-justify our rationalization.
Advocate is right, as is Archer_of_the_Forest. That is one reason the pope speaks out about this – to try to form a consistent standard. I know my RC diocesan newsletter for the past month has had numerous articles on the sanctity of marriage and its blessings. Having married a divorced man in a traditional TEC diocese, he was required to write a letter to the bishop outlining why his first marriage failed, and permission was given to marry in the TEC church. His ex-wife, wanting to get married in an RC ceremony, requested an annulment which was given, since they married when she was 17 and pregnant and he was barely 19. The marriage was deemed sacramentally invalid by the RCC since they had not considered the enormity of the step they were taking. When my husband rejoined, and I joined, the RC church, we were married sacramentally before I was confirmed. A little confusing and open to legalistic abuse, but it does stress the sacrament and the commitment.
I have a friend (RC) whose husband cheated on her. She can’t get an annulment so is looking at going somewhere else. Where is the shepherd in this situation? Would Jesus keep her from receiving His body and blood?
Already left – she is not barred from the sacrament as a divorced person. She just cannot remarry and receive. Not to be snarky, but truly it’s that “better or worse” part of being married. And infidelity is not a ground for annulment, unless you can demonstrate that the person from the time of the wedding, had no intention to be faithful. She might want to talk to a canon lawyer and see if there is possibly another jurisdiction where she can legitimately file.
Regarding a consistent standard – the problem is much like it is in the civil courts. Each diocese is its own jurisdiction under its bishop. Though canon law is consistent throughout the church, it depends on how each tribunal interprets the law, and how much leeway they give. Lincoln, NE is one of the most traditional RC dioceses in the country, and it is not surprising that their tribunal would be under orders from the bishop to interpret the law as strictly as possible. Most US tribunals are not like that, but there is considerable difference in the way various judges think about the law. This is why different people can have different outcomes, even though their circumstances are similar (or they file the same case in different jurisdictions).
Another thing to keep in mind – canon law does not give precedent the same weight as the civil law does. So just because one tribunal ruled one way on a marriage does not bind either that tribunal or any other tribunal from ruling the same way. Canon law is based on a code, much like the European civil codes, and the code law in Quebec and Louisiana. It has its own logical system and rationale, but suffice it to say that if you are looking at the system like you would a common law jurisdiction, it likely isn’t going to make sense.
Until the 1970’s the Episcopal Church had a diocesean annulment process. I remember one of the grounds was “Concurrent contract inconsistent with the contract constituting canonical marriage” otherwise known as “Susie, if it doesn’t work out we’ll get a divorce.” The last was “such defects of personality as to make free and full consent impossible.” That system was seen as unworkable and replaced with a system that required the bishop’s consent for second and subsequent marriages where there was a living spouse. The common practice of many bishops is freely to grant permission for second marriages but to impose various conditions for third ones.
#5 — I find it odd that you only call out the women for adultery. Is there a reason for that, for instance, the traditional Jewish understanding of adultery as meaning sex with a married women? That would open a whole new can of worms!
I think most denominations admit that divorce happens and the church should focus on healing rather than punitive action. If I’m not mistaken, even the Orthodox Church permits one divorce and remarriage and it looks askance at the RC annulment debacle.
I’ve always found it weird how the Kennedy men remained on the receiving end of the sacraments, no matter what (and who, apparently) they did. Good for Sheila for taking on the RC establishment in this regard — and winning!
Addendum: A quick search revealed this interesting and quite clear article on the teachings of the Orthodox Church. I didn’t realize they may permit up to three re-marriages, never a fourth.
With regard to numbers of marriages Jesus did visit the woman at the well and promised her living waters if she would only ask.
Teatime — it’s not a question of “healing rather than punitive action.” Living with someone to whom you are not married while married to another is an ongoing sin, not something which can be “healed.” It would be as if someone said that the Church should focus on “healing” rather than “punishing” homosexual persons living with a same-sex partner. Healing cannot be equated to telling you that what you’re doing wrong is actually OK.
The teaching on divorce is basically this — if your spouse runs off with another person, that does not invalidate your marriage. For example, it might be that one day they return repentent and asking to be forgiven. You are not required to re-enter a marital relationship with them, but certainly the door to even the possibility of this has been closed if you have a new spouse. When you take someone “for better or worse” that means “even if it turns out they’re a rotten low-down cheating SOB.” On the other hand, since a couple contracts a sacramental marriage themselves, if it turns out that one partner was a rotten low-down cheating SOB who was lying through their teeth when they said they intended to be faithful, the marriage has not been contracted.
Teatime – FWIW, I have a bit of a different take on the whole Kennedy situation. Given that family’s situation, family history, and general marital shenanigans, I’m firmly convinced that none of the Kennedy men were capable of what the Church understands as a sacramental marriage. So while I don’t disagree with the granting of annulments, I think they should have been barred from re-marriage in the Church!
Catholic Mom,
Read the Orthodox teaching on marriage/divorce/remarriage that I posted. For me, theirs makes a lot more sense than the RC position.
And the bottom line is this, in regard to the RC system and the Kennedy men, lol. As the article in the original post states, if you’re going to have this oft-puzzling system of declaring marriages void/defective/non-sacramental, shouldn’t that put a greater burden on the marriage preparation/pre-Cana classes in the first place? Better to refuse a Catholic marriage if there are red flags than to permit it and then, when all hell breaks loose later, pore over it to see if it was “sacramental” at all.
I used to help the priests administer the pre-marital inventories back when I was Catholic and they would often be commenting later on the poor results and how unrealistic or incompatible couples were. But suggest that the couple was immature or shouldn’t be marrying meant feuds, tantrums, and calls to the bishop’s office which just landed the priests in hot water. Get real about marital preparation and be more selective about who gets married in the RCC OR be more realistic and balanced about marriage and divorce, as the Orthodox Church seems to be. Reforming both would probably be unthinkable.
The annulment process can be very healing as well–a pastoral response, not just a legalistic experience.
My wife’s first marriage was in the RC church. She went through the annulment process before we even met, not because she wanted to remarry, but because her pastor encouraged her to go through the process for her own emotional and spiritual benefit. (It was evident that her husband never had any intention (or capacity) for being faithful in their marriage).
She found it to be a very healing process that allowed her to understand what had happened in her marriage instead of blaming herself for having “failed.”