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Post by pianistclare on Sept 1, 2021 14:16:21 GMT
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Post by StellaMaris on Sept 1, 2021 22:05:10 GMT
Can I still get an annulment if my ex-spouse doesn’t agree?
Yes. Your ex-spouse’s participation and agreement are not necessary to the Catholic annulment process. The tribunal will get in touch with the ex-spouse, let them know the marriage is being investigated for an annulment, and give them an opportunity to participate. However, their agreement or lack thereof will not inhibit an annulment from being granted. Including the ex-spouse is primarily to give them the opportunity to review any investigative materials, and to have an equal opportunity to participate in the proceedings.
A friend of mine whose cousin is in England had her marriage declared null without the spouse even being contacted. That was on the basis that he was unreasonable and vengeful to a degree that could result in violence. All of those personality factors contributed evidence as to why the marriage was not entered into validly in the first place.
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Post by homeschooldad on Sept 1, 2021 22:13:02 GMT
Much appreciated. Several years ago, I actually started the process for requesting a possible Declaration of Nullity, but for several personal reasons (not going to go there), I never actually filed the papers. I did a lot of research, and already know a lot of these facts, but you can never know too much about such a thing, and I'll look into it. While my father was still lucid and pretty much "at himself", earlier this year, I had him write me an affidavit, he was resistant to having it notarized (difficult for him to leave the house), so I took a photo of him signing the affidavit, with a time and date stamp (it is high-resolution enough, that you can see the contents of the affidavit and him signing it). Sadly, it is the last picture I have of him. (After a certain point, he deteriorated so much physically, that further pictures would have been an affront to his dignity, I can live very well with remembering him as the beautiful man he was in healthier times.) Trying to help his son.
And as StellaMaris well points out, in extreme circumstances, a spouse can get an annulment without notifying the other spouse. But it's not common procedure.
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Post by jimg on Oct 6, 2021 19:57:37 GMT
I recall the Joe Kennedy case in which a declaration of nullity was granted by a U.S. tribunal. But the spouse believed the marriage to be valid, and appealed to the Vatican Signatura, which agreed with her and reversed the declaration of nullity.
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Post by homeschooldad on Oct 6, 2021 21:57:02 GMT
I recall the Joe Kennedy case in which a declaration of nullity was granted by a U.S. tribunal. But the spouse believed the marriage to be valid, and appealed to the Vatican Signatura, which agreed with her and reversed the declaration of nullity. An annulment can be reversed at that level. If the party who is being petitioned against (the respondent) does not want the annulment, an appeal is always their prerogative.
That book came across to me, though, as somewhat petulant, to the effect of "we did too have a valid marriage, and I want the Church to recognize that fact". Many non-Catholics find the Catholic concept of annulment to be highly hypocritical. Not agreeing, just telling you what they think.
Yet one more thing to file under "bad advice from an individual priest", I actually asked a priest one time, when telling him of my marital problems (they emerged over time, this was way before the divorce), of the problems we had from Day One (that is no exaggeration), and he said "you know, sometimes marriages, over time, validate themselves". No. If it wasn't valid on Day One, it will never be valid, not without convalidation, anyway. His comment, evidently taken from one of the more creative wings of sacramental theology, dovetails with the complaint I've heard from some Protestants (not about me, just in general), "you stayed together all these years, you had all these kids, how can you now say it wasn't a marriage?". Again, the "Day One question". To think otherwise, would knock a lot of annulments in the head. Again, not agreeing, just telling you how these people think. (If you're in a bad marriage and you want out, you most certainly do want the Church to ask "Day One questions".)
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alng
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Post by alng on Oct 8, 2021 2:10:40 GMT
I've heard from some Protestants (not about me, just in general), "you stayed together all these years, you had all these kids, how can you now say it wasn't a marriage?".I've heard from Cardinal Kasper: " Well, there are situations in which such annulments are helpful and can be made. But take the case of a couple who are ten years married and have children, in the first years they had a happy marriage, but for different reasons the marriage fell apart. This marriage was a reality, and to say it was canonically null and void does not make sense to me. This is an abstract canonical construction. It’s divorce in a Catholic way, in a dishonest way."
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Post by homeschooldad on Oct 8, 2021 3:49:16 GMT
I've heard from some Protestants (not about me, just in general), "you stayed together all these years, you had all these kids, how can you now say it wasn't a marriage?".I've heard from Cardinal Kasper: " Well, there are situations in which such annulments are helpful and can be made. But take the case of a couple who are ten years married and have children, in the first years they had a happy marriage, but for different reasons the marriage fell apart. This marriage was a reality, and to say it was canonically null and void does not make sense to me. This is an abstract canonical construction. It’s divorce in a Catholic way, in a dishonest way." Again, returning to Day One, if something can be found wrong with the consent on that day, then you have no valid marriage. "This marriage was a reality" is an emotion-based comment. Pardon the unpleasant imagery, but let's say I am single, and I meet the woman of my dreams, we marry, have several children --- then I find out that she is my long-lost half-sister I never knew I had! You could well say, "they were happy together, they loved each other, they had children (who, God willing, would not have problems due to the incest), they had something special". All of that might be true --- but this would be one woman I could never validly marry.
Don't say this can't happen. My uncle, now deceased (not Catholic), was quite the ladies' man in his youth, and sad to say, he even stepped out on my aunt from time to time. My son and I had AncestryDNA tests run (I'd had one a couple of years ago, and we got him one for our homeschool science DNA and heredity project) and lo and behold, we have not one, but two cousins we never knew we had, and by process of elimination, and knowing where my uncle was living at the time... well, you do the math. What if one of these brothers had married one of his half-sisters? Again, there are some people you just can't marry, that you can't have a valid marriage with.
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alng
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Post by alng on Oct 8, 2021 4:41:08 GMT
There are solid reasons for a marriage annulment and there are flimsy reasons. Solid reasons such as I did not know that my wife was already married, or my husband was an ordained Catholic priest but did not tell me about it, have always been accepted. Flimsy reasons, such as after 15 years of marriage and 3 children I get a new girlfriend and as I think about it, I now go back into the past and see that i did not realize then this was supposed to be a lifelong commitment etc., etc., are easy to find, and I have heard it said that you can always find a couple of flimsy reasons to present to the marriage tribunal after you have gotten your civil divorce. So the annulment process as practiced in 1929 with 9 marriage annulments in the USA for that year was a serious process based on solid and sound reasons. The teaching has changed and the truth of whether or not a marriage is valid has changed since then and the result of granting annulments on the basis of flimsy reasons is that the number of marriage annulments in the USA has been more than 50,000 in some years. Here's what Jesus said: “Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery, and the man who marries a divorced woman commits adultery." I don't see where He excluded civil divorce from this. The person gets married and has children and there is no problem for 15 years until the wife meets a boyfriend. She then gets a civil divorce, goes to the marriage tribunal with her flimsy reason and the Catholic tribunal annuls her marriage and then she remarries in the Roman Catholic Church. i don't see any real difference here between this and other Church sponsored divorces except for semantics where you say there never was a "valid " marriage? But is this what jesus meant that it is Ok to look for some flimsy reason, that was never accepted in 1929, and then get your civil divorce and then get remarried? Does the truth change from what it was in 1929 to what it is today? Not just 1929, but for hundreds of years before Vatican II only solid and sound reasons were accepted.
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Post by homeschooldad on Oct 8, 2021 12:56:12 GMT
There are solid reasons for a marriage annulment and there are flimsy reasons. Solid reasons such as I did not know that my wife was already married, or my husband was an ordained Catholic priest but did not tell me about it, have always been accepted. Flimsy reasons, such as after 15 years of marriage and 3 children I get a new girlfriend and as I think about it, I now go back into the past and see that i did not realize then this was supposed to be a lifelong commitment etc., etc., are easy to find, and I have heard it said that you can always find a couple of flimsy reasons to present to the marriage tribunal after you have gotten your civil divorce. So the annulment process as practiced in 1929 with 9 marriage annulments in the USA for that year was a serious process based on solid and sound reasons. The teaching has changed and the truth of whether or not a marriage is valid has changed since then and the result of granting annulments on the basis of flimsy reasons is that the number of marriage annulments in the USA has been more than 50,000 in some years. Here's what Jesus said: “Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery, and the man who marries a divorced woman commits adultery." I don't see where He excluded civil divorce from this. The person gets married and has children and there is no problem for 15 years until the wife meets a boyfriend. She then gets a civil divorce, goes to the marriage tribunal with her flimsy reason and the Catholic tribunal annuls her marriage and then she remarries in the Roman Catholic Church. i don't see any real difference here between this and other Church sponsored divorces except for semantics where you say there never was a "valid " marriage? But is this what jesus meant that it is Ok to look for some flimsy reason, that was never accepted in 1929, and then get your civil divorce and then get remarried? Does the truth change from what it was in 1929 to what it is today? Not just 1929, but for hundreds of years before Vatican II only solid and sound reasons were accepted. The truth has not changed, and depending upon how you define "teaching", it can be said either to have changed, or not changed. If you conflate "teaching" with "doctrine", then of course it hasn't. The doctrine is that a man and a woman in a valid marriage are in that marriage for the remainder of their lives. There has been a development of sorts, in that we now understand there is more to a valid marriage than "man, woman, not impeded by any visible factors, priest witnesses vows, married for life, end of story". Some people cannot contract a valid marriage, either at one point in time, or for their entire lives, and to nail this down, might take a year or two, counseling, psychological testing, "sussing out" reasons why, despite all outward appearances, this marriage cannot take place validly. In the meantime, you've got these two people, often in love up to their eyeballs, frantically wanting that marriage day to come, and, sadly, often (or even usually) having sex and even living together. If the Church tried to put these people through a "lay novitiate" of sorts, in today's society anyway, it would prompt many couples just to seek out an invalid marriage outside the Church.
I find myself in fundamental agreement with Pope Francis in that he said many marriages (he first said "most", but somebody didn't like that, a kind of trouble I've gotten into myself as well, so his comments had to be revised, and "many" can mean "most" or not mean "most", it doesn't imply "a lot, but not a majority") are of questionable validity because the couple didn't really understand what marriage is, i.e., they couldn't "intend to do what the Church does", because they don't know, or do not sufficiently understand, what that is. And don't forget that Our Lady of Fatima said many marriages are not good, not of God, and they do not please Our Lord. If all marriages, aside from that nine or so per year that the Church declared null and void, are valid if they are contracted in the Church, how can this be? But as with many things about Fatima --- no disrespect or irreverence intended --- sometimes the revelations are more in the nature of a Delphic oracle, leaving you scratching your head and saying "what exactly did she mean by that?". She could have been talking about invalid marriages outside the Church. She could have been talking about married couples using contraception. She could have been talking about bad valid marriages (and they can and do exist). Or she could have been talking about putatively valid marriages that are, in fact, invalid. Or some or all of the above. No way to know. I've had a pet theory that "annihilation of nations" referred to the extermination of European Jews and others, such as the Roma (colloquially called "Gypsies"). No way to know that either. People generally jumped to the conclusion that it meant nuclear annihilation. Our Lady wasn't that specific.
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alng
Full Member
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Post by alng on Oct 8, 2021 15:40:25 GMT
The truth has not changed....There has been a development of sorts, Since a development is an event constituting a new stage in a changing situation, it looks to me like there has been a change. Just take a look at the statistics for the USA: 1929 - 9 marriage annulments which were granted for solid and sound reasons only. 1993 - more than 50,000 marriage annulments which were granted for solid and sound reasons but also for flimsy reasons which were not accepted in 1929. This is a change and a very serious one in what constitutes a "valid" marriage. Was the Catholic Church in error in 1929 and for hundreds of years before that when it granted annulments only for sound and solid reasons, such as your partner did not disclose that he was already married when you attempted marriage?
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Post by pianistclare on Oct 8, 2021 19:00:07 GMT
People tend to forget. What happens after the marriage is seldom accepted as a reason for annulment. It's the situation before the marriage or at the time of the marriage that renders an annulment possible.
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Post by homeschooldad on Oct 8, 2021 22:21:55 GMT
The truth has not changed....There has been a development of sorts, Since a development is an event constituting a new stage in a changing situation, it looks to me like there has been a change. Just take a look at the statistics for the USA: 1929 - 9 marriage annulments which were granted for solid and sound reasons only. 1993 - more than 50,000 marriage annulments which were granted for solid and sound reasons but also for flimsy reasons which were not accepted in 1929. This is a change and a very serious one in what constitutes a "valid" marriage. Was the Catholic Church in error in 1929 and for hundreds of years before that when it granted annulments only for sound and solid reasons, such as your partner did not disclose that he was already married when you attempted marriage? No, "development of doctrine" is a very specific concept, meaning that doctrine does not change, but the Church's understanding of it deepens over time. Here is an article that summarizes the concept well:
The Church now understands that there are factors that can invalidate a marriage, other than obvious, objective ones. Advances in psychology, understanding of human motivation, impediments to maturity and free will, and so on, make for a greater understanding of the human person, than existed in times past. An analogy would be that we now understanding fasting, for some people, can be positively harmful. Until insulin was invented, if you were diabetic, you just died. It is entirely foreseeable that a priest would now know, and would be able to tell a penitent, "I know you want to fast and mortify yourself, but if you have this malady or that, it could seriously harm your health or even kill you, I'm not going to allow you to fast, let's find you another work of mortification that won't pose a hazard to your health". And if the penitent thinks they know more than the priest, well, that's a problem.
But back to the point. The "doctrine" regarding marriage is that a man and a woman, entering marriage with no impediments, confect a valid sacrament that can only be dissolved by death. That hasn't changed one iota. What has changed is our understanding of what an "impediment" is. Nine annulments in 1929 was more than a little too stingy. Marriages existed then that would unambiguously have been null and void given today's understanding of what can constitute an impediment. It would have been nice to have this knowledge, but we didn't. Fifty thousand per year might be too lax, it might be about right, or following the reasoning of Pope Francis, it might not even be enough. In each and every annulment case, someone has to sit down and look at all of the facts. Finally, they either come to the moral certainty that the marriage is invalid, or that it is valid. The bishop's "signing off on this" --- and if the bishop isn't looking at each and every case, at least his tribunal's digest of their decision, he should be --- is clearly an exercise of the Church's power of binding and loosing. If a bogus annulment would "slip through", that is not on the couple, that is on the bishop.
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Post by tth1 on Oct 13, 2021 16:50:11 GMT
People tend to forget. What happens after the marriage is seldom accepted as a reason for annulment. It's the situation before the marriage or at the time of the marriage that renders an annulment possible. The invalidity of the marriage has to exist at the time the marriage was putatively contracted by the parties. However, I do believe that tribunals will accept evidence of behaviour after the marriage as evidence that the marriage was contracted invalidly. For example, it would be difficult to demonstrate that one of the spouse's viewed marriage as not being a permanent institution unless that spouse departed when he/she felt things weren't going as he/she would like. Indeed, my example comes from one of many I have seen in books I've read of annulments and on guidance produced by various tribunals.
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Post by homeschooldad on Oct 13, 2021 21:33:20 GMT
People tend to forget. What happens after the marriage is seldom accepted as a reason for annulment. It's the situation before the marriage or at the time of the marriage that renders an annulment possible. The invalidity of the marriage has to exist at the time the marriage was putatively contracted by the parties. However, I do believe that tribunals will accept evidence of behaviour after the marriage as evidence that the marriage was contracted invalidly. For example, it would be difficult to demonstrate that one of the spouse's viewed marriage as not being a permanent institution unless that spouse departed when he/she felt things weren't going as he/she would like. Indeed, my example comes from one of many I have seen in books I've read of annulments and on guidance produced by various tribunals.
This is why I would like to see a longer, more involved --- I'll even say "invasive" --- preparation for marriage, and I'd even make psychological testing and at least one session with a licensed counselor or social worker a requirement for marriage, to ferret out things that could be problems down the road. I mean, they require such evaluations for priests, don't they? (And with good reason.) But to return to a point I made earlier, if you placed more and more restrictions on who can marry, "who shouldn't marry just yet", and who shouldn't marry at all, you'd find a few holy souls who would say "we're so happy the Church is forcing us to look intently at this vocation, and making sure we're not making a mistake", but you would have far more who would say "this is b******t, we have to jump through enough hoops as it is, we'll just find some other way to get married, no other church requires this, and there's always the justice of the peace". There are no easy answers, and sadly, too many are not stopping and asking objectively, "should we do this, are we called to this vocation with one another, will it help us to save our souls and grow closer to God?", but rather simply "we love each other and want to be together". Sometimes we want things --- and people --- we should not have.
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Post by farronwolf on Oct 14, 2021 2:00:33 GMT
The invalidity of the marriage has to exist at the time the marriage was putatively contracted by the parties. However, I do believe that tribunals will accept evidence of behaviour after the marriage as evidence that the marriage was contracted invalidly. For example, it would be difficult to demonstrate that one of the spouse's viewed marriage as not being a permanent institution unless that spouse departed when he/she felt things weren't going as he/she would like. Indeed, my example comes from one of many I have seen in books I've read of annulments and on guidance produced by various tribunals.
This is why I would like to see a longer, more involved --- I'll even say "invasive" --- preparation for marriage, and I'd even make psychological testing and at least one session with a licensed counselor or social worker a requirement for marriage, to ferret out things that could be problems down the road. I mean, they require such evaluations for priests, don't they? (And with good reason.) But to return to a point I made earlier, if you placed more and more restrictions on who can marry, "who shouldn't marry just yet", and who shouldn't marry at all, you'd find a few holy souls who would say "we're so happy the Church is forcing us to look intently at this vocation, and making sure we're not making a mistake", but you would have far more who would say "this is b******t, we have to jump through enough hoops as it is, we'll just find some other way to get married, no other church requires this, and there's always the justice of the peace". There are no easy answers, and sadly, too many are not stopping and asking objectively, "should we do this, are we called to this vocation with one another, will it help us to save our souls and grow closer to God?", but rather simply "we love each other and want to be together". Sometimes we want things --- and people --- we should not have.
I know a few counselors and social workers, and from my experience, (not from seeing them myself, but they are either clients or known to me personally) they are as, or more messed up than the rest of society. What good could possibly come from meeting with folks who can't manage their own lives? It would be much more beneficial for prospective marriage partners to meet with people who have long term stable marriages, for honest discussions about what marriage is all about. I will propose this question. If the Church can't get it right as to whether or not a man should be a priest after years in the seminary and all the interactions he has, how in the world does anyone think that they can get who should and shouldn't get married right?
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