POPE CALLS FOR A HALT IN ANNULMENT CASES
In a discourse given to the Roman Rota on January 29, 2009, Pope Benedict XVI called for an implementation of two discourses given by Pope John Paul II more than two decades ago, asking for a cessation of the scandal of false annulments on psychological grounds.
The official Vatican website, Zenit, on January 29, 2009, quoted from the discourse of Benedict XVI:
“The value of Christian marriage runs the risk of being practically destroyed if the sacrament is declared null because of pretexts,” says Benedict XVI … Citing the Polish Pope, Benedict XVI lamented that it is still possible to detect the need to preserve the ecclesial community from the “‘scandal of seeing the value of Christian marriage being practically destroyed by the exaggerated and almost automatic multiplication of declarations of nullity of marriage in cases of the failure of marriage on the pretext of some immaturity or psychic weakness on the part of the contracting parties.’”… Again referring to his predecessor’s address, the Pontiff noted the distinction between a “psychic maturity which is seen as the goal of human development”; and “canonical maturity which is rather the basic minimum required for establishing the validity of marriage”. He further noted the difference between “incapacity” and “difficulty”, recalling John Paul II’s assertion that “‘only incapacity and not difficulty in giving consent and in realizing a true community of life and love invalidates a marriage.’”
These are indeed very strong statements from the Church’s highest lawmaker and judge, and reinforced similar statements by Pope John Paul II, indicating that the Church’s system of annulment tribunals is simply not working. The pope makes the distinction between psychological conditions that make a marriage null and void because they make the contract impossible, and those that simply make it a failure but which do not nullify the contract. However, the problem is that this distinction is very difficult to make in practice. The end result is that decrees of nullity are very commonly given for lack of due discernment, according to Canon 1095 of the 1983 Code. As the pope himself points out, these have become “automatic”. Immaturity or psychological problems (so common in our modern dysfunctional world) become a pretence for a decree that falsely declares that there never was a marriage in the first place.
ANNULMENTS = CATHOLIC DIVORCE
Annulments have become, in effect, “Catholic divorce”. This is precisely what the pope means when he talks about the “scandal of seeing the value of Christian marriage being practically destroyed”. There is no doubt that the frequency of false annulments is a cause of grave scandal, for it is now in the minds of all Catholics that if their marriage does not work out, they can always apply for an annulment, and the chances are that it will be granted for lack of due discernment, namely lack of maturity. If the popes have been inveighing about this problem for more than 20 of the 25 years since the 1983 Code was promulgated, why is it that nothing has been done, and that false annulments are still granted? Who really accepts papal authority? Why does the pope not follow up with some disciplinary measures? Here lies the entire contradiction of liberalism, corrupting and destroying the Church from within.
Is there any wonder that the Society of Saint Pius X does not accept these decrees of nullity at face value? Is there any surprise that the Society’s priests refuse to marry those who present a decree of nullity in virtue of Canon 1095 (which is the vast majority)? Is there any wonder that the Society of Saint Pius X has set up its own tribunals, to obtain moral certitude, to exclude highly doubtful psychological grounds, and to examine the marriage contract itself? Let the Society’s faithful take a lesson from this. Let them refuse to date persons who have Novus Ordo decrees of nullity, and let them not submit their difficult and delicate marriage cases to any other but a traditional tribunal.
Answered by Father Peter Scott, SSPX.