Posted on 10/30/2005 2:41:28 PM PST by NYer
So if the couple was ever validly married, according to Church requirements, they remain married until one or both dies. Whether the marriage was sacramentally, as opposed to legally, valid, is the question that is raised in annulment proceedings.
If the first (attempted) marriage was found to be invalid (annulled), then there is no moral problem with the "second" marriage ---- since the first one, because of some defect at the beginning, was not fully sacramentral and thus was not binding.
Yes.
Also if the widow, or widower, marries a person who was not previously married.
I am not sure what you mean by this. A second marriage, if it is a true and valid marriage (after an annullment or after the death of the first spouse) is just the same sacramentally as a first marriage. The spouses can have intercourse, and of course the intercourse should be natural (not deliberately contracepted.)
Er..typo! "Matt. 10:09" should be Matt. 19:09! Hitting a key one to the right of the one I wanted makes a whole LOT of difference! ;-)
I am not referring to all annulments. You should have pick up that little clue from my post.
relax, I am not referring to all annulments.
I notice, that Ted Kennedy made a mistake. Is there no deadline after which you have to live with your mistake?
Couples can separate for any reason, with or without a legal divorce. The issue with the church arises if they get married to someone else.
You can find a full discussion of annulment on the internet, probably at your local diocese's web site, if you're interested. I read up on this a few years ago for my husband's stepmother, who could easily (it seemed to me) get a declaration of nullity for her first marriage, because her husband had no intention of being faithful. However, I don't think she's felt the need to pursue the paperwork on it.
Ummm, more like a mutually agreeable fine rather than penance after confession. The sin itself was not forgiven until actually spoken in the confessional. Not necessarily right, but there were conditions, not an outright sale.
Details.
I'm not sure what you mean by "divorce with permission," but this is categorically *not* allowed by the Catholic Church. A divorce is tolerated by the Church, especially in physically abusive situations. But, even there, even the person who was the victim cannot remarry. Sometimes living the Christian life is more about responsibility than about "rights."
If what you mean by "divorce" is actually an "annuled" marriage, that is a different situation. In this case, the declaration of nullity says that no true marriage existed at all. In this case, the person is free to marry "again," because, in the eyes of the Church, the person is really geting married for the first time.
That having been said, the "annulment" process does stand to come into a closer scrutiny. There was a time when the Church effectively only granted an annulment for just a handful of reasons: a forced marriage, fraud on the part of one or both parties, known physical impotence on the part of the male not disclosed beforehand to the female, an agreement made by the parties before the marriage to absolutely not have children if the marriage was to take place during childbearing years, an agreement made by both parties that the marriage would only last until "they grow tired of each other" (denying the permanency of the sacramental union). That's about it. Right up to the 1960's, there were literally only 500-600 annulments granted by the Church in this country annually.
Things are different these days, and not really for the better. There are now over 50,000 Catholic annulments granted in this country annually. The tribunals having opened the grounds wide open with endless permutations of psychological reasons. This often tends to leave the perception in peoples' minds that an annulment is little more than "Catholic divorce." To some extent, there is a grain of "truth" to that charge in some dioceses, unfortunately.
Nevertheless, despite some shaky grounds used, a Catholic receiving an annulment is free to marry; the presumption of legitimacy of the process is not the burden of the grantee. Of course, it would be better if people in this situation were a little more discerning to begin with, and less itchy to start an annulment process when they *should* know that their grounds are suspect, but I suppose that the state of catechesis is so poor these days, that most folks are truly ignorant of the very narrow scriptural grounds.
The United States is home to roughly 6% of the world's Catholics, yet over 70% of the Church's annulments are granted here. That is a sign of outrageous abuse of the process. Hopefully, under the current pope, the situation will soon be addressed, and some semblance of legitimacy will return to the process.
I was sure that the answer was 'yes'.......but my daughter insisted that if I should marry again, I could not take communion.
I was going to ask the priest, now I don't have to.
Dear magisterium,
I've read that many of those obtaining declarations of nullity are individuals being received into the Catholic Church from Protestantism. I've read that many of these individuals are actually obtaining declarations of nullity from multiple marriages. Thus, although there are over 50,000 declarations of nullity annually, there are not as many individuals actually receiving them.
As well, I've actually spoken to folks who have obtained declarations of nullity in these circumstances, and my conversations with them suggest that many of them really didn't enter into previous "marriages" with anything close to a Catholic understanding of the sacrament. In particular, many of these folks did not, prior to their desire to become Catholic, hold that marriage is permanent, that marriage requires openness to children, or that marriage is even a sacrament. In these cases, often folks got married in front of a minister strictly for social and cultural reasons, with no thought given to the sacramental nature of the act.
Perhaps the number of annulments is too high, but I think that circumstances suggest that it isn't quite as bad as the raw numbers suggest.
sitetest
It is true that some of the annulments are for Protestants who become Catholic subsequent to the marriage. Many of these are truly "legitimate," insofar as the person, before becoming Catholic, married only civily, to a non-Christian, or some other inherent problem.
The Catholic Church considers any marriage between two baptized Protestants to be a sacramental marriage, even if the denomination involved does not. Therefore, when a person (or the couple) converts, the marriage already entered into needs to have nothing done to "correct" the situation.
Conversions are way down compared to 50 years ago. If the proportion of converts seeking an annulment (based on invalid situations existing through their pre-Catholic ignorance) is comparable to the proportion of born-Catholics seeking one, then the number would still be fairly small.
But you are right about these folks' common observations about their grounds. Openness to children, permanency, and other issues that converts can understandably plead ignorance on before their conversion, make such folks legitimate candidates.
Another factor that accounts for a fairly large number of annulments these days is "defect of form." If a Catholic wishes to marry a non-Catholic Christian, he or she must get a dispensation from the bishop, and must also get his permission to marry in the Protestant church of the non-Catholic party. Since both parties are Christians, the marriage will be sacramental. But if dispensation is not sought, the Church will not recognize it as valid. If, at a future date, that marriage is not sanated ("blessed") by the Church, an annulment could be granted for defect of form. This situation is much more common today than two generations or more ago, when "mixed marriages" were discouraged.
Dear magisterium,
I suspect that annulments granted to converts is much higher, proportionately, than to indivdiuals actually originally married in the Catholic Church. I say this because it seems that about one out of three adults are divorced, and there are over 100,000 adults per year coming into the Catholic Church. That's a lot of divorces to clear up upon reception to the Church!
My own view is that part of the surge (not all of it) in annulments comes directly from the wider culture in which we live. A hundred years ago, most reasonably-devout Protestants would have agreed that marriage must be open to children. Even 50 years ago, lots of non-Catholics would have still accepted the basic premise, even as they accepted the morality of contraception.
As well, 50 years ago, the idea of the indissolubility of marriage was still a firm part of our culture. Not so, today. Thus, converts of a previous era probably had a much more Catholic knowledge and understanding of marriage, whereas many converts now entering the Church come from a cultural milieu that negates the Catholic understanding of marriage.
I wouldn't be surprised if up to 40% or even a bit more of the annulments granted in the US each year are to converts to the Faith.
Another large proportion of annulments go to, I suspect, Catholics who really never did hold to a Catholic view of marriage. These are individuals who go to the pre-Cana classes, but more or less skate under the radar, and get married, but without really believing in Catholic teaching. I know of someone who married a man in the Church. Years later, when he was fooling around on her, he admitted that he never held to the view that a man must be monogamous and faithful. Not from the day he married. He also never believed that it was necessary to be open to children. I know of another young woman who married a man who ultimately revealed that he didn't think that "group sex" was really out of the question in marriage.
In the previous era, at least a cad did not claim his perfidy was blessed by God.
Where sin is so hardened as to call itself righteousness, one wonders whether there could be a truly valid marriage. The "innocent" spouses in these relationships certainly should be permitted the freedom given by a declaration of nullity.
sitetest
Well, I don't have "hard data" on annulment rates of converts, but I would be in a position to make a few fair assumptions. There are 50-60,000 annulments granted in the US among the 45 million adult Catholics overall in this country. Taking the midrange, 55,000, and dividing the 45 million by that, gives a rate of one annulment per 818 Catholic adults. If the same rate were used with the 100,000 adult converts, this would yield approximately 122 annulments that occur annually among the converts. That's not very many.
Even granting that a disproportionate number of them had defects in their pre-Catholic marriages due to ignorance of proper requirements, it's hard to imagine that the rate of these defects would be so high as to account for 40% (your estimate) of the total annulments in the country. That would equal 22,000 annulments (40% of 55,000), which would mean that 22% of Protestant converts (22,000 of 100,000) get annulments each year. I can't imagine that proportion is anywhere near accurate in reality.
Strictly speaking, the scenario you propose regarding Catholics who enter marriage totally ignorant of the realities (who do it just for the "church wedding," parental expectation, etc.) wouldn't qualify for an annulment. The Church has a right to suppose that marriages entered within it are valid. We could get onto the slippery slope very quickly if the assumption didn't go here. If "perfect" understanding and pre-Cana catechesis were required for validity, there'd be precious few valid marriages indeed! If the couple, or at least one of the parties, in the situation you describe wants an annulment on the basis of a lack of understanding of permanence, openness to life, and so forth, then the Church could start the tribunal process. But, in proper circumstances (often lacking in tribunals these days, I admit), the tribunal won't just take their word for it that they weren't open to life, thought marriage only temporary, etc. Real evidence would have to be presented showing that this was, in fact, the mindset. In the example you cite, the man who was fooling around and didn't want children would have to provide witnesses or physical testimony (contemporary letters, for example) to back up his claim of defective intention on his part.
In a more general context, merely being somewhat deficient in general Catholic catechesis or not having very much real faith as a Catholic would constitute insufficient grounds, as the Church would say that sufficient grace is supplied to the Catholic couple even in these circumstances.
Please God, that someday soon we can return to scripturally and traditionally based grounds for declaring marriages null, and stop the stigma to true annulments, attached by Catholics and non-Catholics alike, equating the whole business to "Catholic divorce." In their zeal to be all things to all men, the powers-that-be have hurt far more people than they've helped in the long run. Spouses who fought an annulment because they knew the marriage was obviously valid, children of parents in that situation, potential "new" spouses of the divorced who have been led-on with false hope, and lots of other people, are hurt by annulments sanctimoniously handed-out to people in mockery of the clear intention of Christ for His Church.
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