Perplexed: I held this comment for a while because I wanted to respond with charity. To be honest, I just forgot about it in the busy-ness of life. For that I apologize.

I won’t speak to your specific case because I only have what you have posted here and none of the real details. I will say that I am truly sorry that you have to go through this. A Sacramental marriage is very important to both husband and wife. There may certainly be too many annullments declared. I will say this about the process though. After much thought and research about what makes a marriage Sacramental, I think that perhaps the problem isn’t as much the tribunals always being too permissive with the annullments.

What makes a marriage Sacramental is proper form and proper matter. Form for Catholics is nominally to be married by a priest or deacon (or even bishop) in a Catholic church or chapel. There can be exceptions, but they must be approved by the Bishop generally. Presumably, your marriage or one in a similar situation has no issues with form. Matter is where I think most marriages that get annulled are found faulty. Matter is a man and a woman who are baptized and have no prior restrictions such as living divorced spouse without an annullment. Additionally, each must give full consent without coercion. The full consent means that each comes into the marriage with a proper understanding of marriage and knowledge of the potential spouse.

Proper understanding of marriage means that each understands that marriage is permanent until one spouse dies and that each must be open to life. This means that neither intends to contracept in any way once married. Each must also understand that marriage is a total giving of self to the other and agree to it. There are a lot of ways to express what the proper understanding. If either person holds some sort of mental reservation about the proper understanding, the marriage has failed to pass that test.

Full knowledge basically means that nothing is kept from the future spouse that would affect their willingness to get married. For instance, if a man or woman has been carrying on affairs during the engagement and doesn’t really plan on giving them up, that is a lack of full knowledge. If one is an alcoholic and has managed to hide it, that is a failure of knowledge. There are too many situations to possibly list.

I know that some of these considerations are more recent, but I truly believe they are valid. I pray that the tribunal makes the right decision and that all parties can accept it and move one.

The faithful spouse is able to receive the Eucharist, the one who abandoned the marriage and married again outside the Church without having had the marriage examined for validity/nullity cannot.

In order for her to now petition for nullity, she must know in her heart that her marriage was null, in order to sign those papers to begin the process. If she believes it was valid in her heart, she is unable to petition. We live, then, in obedience to God and the Church, and count it all to His glory. We live in worst, in poorer, etc. It is what we vowed to do before God and man that day. We are not responsible for what the other chooses to do, only for living up to what we promised God and our spouse with witnesses.

In this country, I would even question the outcome and no matter what the dissuasion used, would appeal to the Roman Rota in order to know for certain the outcome of the decision, as many from the US have been overturned by the Rota. I would not even go to the Court of Second Instance here, but immediately to the Rota. And I would make that clear immediately that this was my intention.

I would recommend very FEW books written here in the US, actually. But would recommend Robert Vasoli’s. The Holy Father himself, JPII has frequently expressed deep concerns about the number and reasons for US null decision, going back to the beginning of his Papacy. So, regardless of how others may feel, though the Tribunals don’t ‘hand them out like candy’, they use some very questionable grounds many times. The psych reasons are NOT always valid grounds, etc. I have met very few who did not get the Null verdict. And I have been watching for 23 years. VERY FEW who did not get a null verdict here in the US. That leaves many of us stranded with no recourse. We who were abandoned by today’s no fault unilateral divorce cannot file and be honest because we believe our marriage to be valid, but the same one who deserted the marriage to begin with can, with no qualms whatsoever, file those papers already planning another marriage, and almost count on a Null verdict to marry again in our Church.

That is scandalous, and it hurts the first faithful spouse, as well as those children of that marriage. It is precisely why the Rota will be appealed to if it ever comes to that in our case.

Catechesis does not make or not break a valid marriage, and I really am tired of hearing that this is the reason people do not know what they are doing. The Church recognizes all marriages to be valid until proven null. ALL marriages. That means that any marriage between two Baptized people is Sacramental, and any marriage, including those not between two Baptized is valid. It is why all marriages must be examined if someone divorced enters the Church before they can receive the Sacraments. Now, if two non-Catholics can have a valid marriage and know NOTHING about our Church, tell me how WE cannot simply due to ‘poor catechesis’??? That is simply an excuse, a justification, a way to rationalize. There is no way that there should be this many null decisions. JPII said this often. And getting to divorce court does NOT prove nullity, especially today, when ONE decides, and ONE destroys the family with no right of defense by the respondents. No fault, forced, unilateral divorce of today is the evil, and all the ‘compassion’ in the world will not make all of those marriages null regardless of WHO says it, nor all the paperwork involved when grounds that are not real grounds are used to ‘prove’ things.

We KNOW what we promised. And very few did not meet the very minimal requirements for matrimony on their wedding day. We can justify anything with hindsight. And there are many in the life of the Church who understood, and still are many as the DRE in your story, who understand today, the significance of Jesus’ words.

As for not casting a positive light on the Church by saying that too many null verdicts are granted… if there is evil happening, there SHOULD be light cast on it. Long ago, a King decided he knew better, and he started his own Church. Today, people are preaching his sermon and calling it good.

I also cannot agree with anonymous, either, for the anger is misdirected, and forgiveness is what we are called to. A Declaration of Nullity does NOT cost all that much, for sure not anywhere NEAR what a Civil divorce with min of two lawyers, possibly more charging a lot per hour to divide what God put together. This is not the CHURCH, but Her enemy that is doing this to families. In or out of Church, the enemy takes our kids through divorce, drugs, abortion. The tradedy is too many of us faithful spouses, faithful Catholics have been deserted not only by our mates, but also by our Church members who listen to a ‘spirit of compassion’ instead of to what God says in Malachi. God HATES divorce and what you are doing to the wife(husband of your youth) because of what it does to your children. Jesus in four different places says to marry again is adultery, and names all four members involved. And in 1Cor 7, we are told to reconcile or remain single, and Paul says that is from the Lord, not from him. God bless

While Anon’s post would seem to back up my initial post, I just can’t come down on his side at all. As I said before, not all diocese are like this. I know several people that have gone through the process here and NONE have talked about how it’s an annulment mill as it were. All talk about the length of time it takes. And not everyone gets their annulment.

What I find interesting is that someone who was a “lifelong Catholic and loved the Catholic Church” would leave because his marriage was declared null. If TRUTH is all you love, then why leave. Surely you know that the Church was founded by Christ. And thus is the fullness of truth as left by Him.

Whether or not your marriage was not sacramental is not my concern here. But it obviously was not the cause of the breakup between you and your wife. This has in no way kept you from living your life OR PARTICIPATING IN THE SACRAMENTS. Civil divorce is not cause for that. Only if you are divorced and unchaste (living together, sexually active, unlawfully remarried, etc.).

If you think a declaration of nullity causes breakups, I wonder if you really understand the situation of most people who go through this. No one I know has ever gotten a decree and then a civil divorce. It goes the other way and likely did for you too. So where’s the anger coming from? I honestly don’t get it.

As far as having corrupt clergy. Well of course. Christ even chose one bad apple out of twelve. But according to you, the 10s of thousands of priests in this country and probably worldwide are all the Catholic version of the mafia. Yep. Every last one of them. That’s the real seminary scandal. All the honest men are turned away and all the ones that would have gone into organized crime are accepted. That’s the REAL vocations crisis.

Anyway, I think this is a pointless exercise. I pray that you are relieved of your anger and return home to Mother Church. Truly, I do.

Annulments are handed out like rubbers in a High School.

The Catholic Church is not interested in justice it is interested in expedience and keeping the money in the collection plate.

The Catholic Church does not care about fidelity other than to use it to APPEAR to care about it.

I lived through the annulment process and that is why I am a former catholic. It is a demeaning and corrupted process. There is absolutely no interest by the Catholic Church in reforming this evil process.

Anyone who thinks otherwise is a fool and ignorant at that. Your clergy are a lazy bunch of adultery encouraging reprobates who could care less about an innocent spouse. Damn them for their arrogance. Most, I hope, will spend eternity apart from the God who is Truth, whom they continue to so horribly offend as they destroy countless Sacramental marriages and families and innocent spouses.

And may God bless the innocent spouse(s) and be a comfort to them on the tough road they have if they want to remain faithful to God and to their vows, which is their obligation.

Sincerely,

A former life long Catholic who loved the Catholic Church but loves truth more and sees the Catholic Church as an impediment to truth, based upon his very personal experience with the “annulment system” and who would not lie or misrepresent what he has seen, unlike what I continue to see everyday among the totally corrupted clergy of the Catholic Church.

What I am saying, and thought I already did, is that there are many places that have the rep of giving them out like candy. So much so that the Pope sought to put it back on level ground some time ago. I wish I had the sources to refer to this, but I do not. I do remember reading about it some years ago and that the Northeast of the US being singled out.

Next, my main point was that there seem to be way too many people that think that a denial of a declaration is something that the Church does to them. It is NOT. The Church cannot change the status of a sacramental marriage. Are declarations given out wrongly? Sure. Not given out wrongly? Sure. I don’t doubt that both are true. But I think that too many people see a declaration as a RIGHT within the Church rather than a last resort.

When applied properly, the process should produce the proper results. I do not doubt that the official process and documents are extremely thorough. They should be. But I wonder when powerful politicians can get their declarations after 20 years of marriage and infidelity(s), and others cannot. The process is not uniform, nor is it viewed correctly.

Again, we have a case of bad catechesis in the Church in my opinion.