However, this is an end-run around the whole thing in order to change doctrine - without having to get into the messy question of the fact that you can’t change it. Not even if you’re the Pope.
So what we have now is a de facto divorce: automatic unless there’s one party who wants to contest it, no defender of the bond, mostly laypeople (bureaucrats equivalent to a county clerk) involved in the process, a wide range of vague reasons that can be interpreted any way you want, and a nice low fee. Heck, maybe they should install an annulment vending machine in front of the diocesan headquarters.
Look for a process to make annulments retroactive - that is, currently divorced and remarried people will be given a special fast track (one of the “reasons” for an annulment was living with someone else). They’ll be processed right through and then will be free to marry again (or at any rate, continue their second “marriage,” now legitimized. Just wait.
Again Specifically tell me what doctrine is being changed.
Exactly! But from a theological perspective, we need to be clear. Undermining a doctrine with lax practice is not the same thing as actually changing it. Moving the tabernacle to a closet off to the side doesn't formally change the doctrine of the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, but it certainly changes it in peoples' minds. And that's what he's doing here. It's my suspicion that he's doing it so that it becomes harder and harder to distinguish between annulment and divorce so that a future pope will formally change the doctrine. That won't happen, of course, but there's nothing to stop him from trying.
Look for a process to make annulments retroactive - that is, currently divorced and remarried people will be given a special fast track (one of the “reasons” for an annulment was living with someone else). They’ll be processed right through and then will be free to marry again (or at any rate, continue their second “marriage,” now legitimized. Just wait.
In my darkest predictions I did not see this. But you're right. That'll be coming.