Organization: City University of New York/ University Computer Center
Date: Friday, 16 Oct 1992 09:25:33 EDT
From: Marty Helgesen <MNHCC@CUNYVM.BITNET>
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.catholic
Subject:  Annulment

The popular taunt that annulment is just Catholic divorce has ap-
peared here.  It is untrue.  There is a difference between annulment
and divorce, as shown by the fact that annulments exist in civil law
as well as in church law.  The difference between them is that a
divorce is an action and an annulment is a statement.

A divorce dissolves an existing marriage, to the extent that the body
that issues the divorce has authority to do so.  A civil divorce
dissolves the civil effects of a marriage.  The parties are free to
remarry without committing the criminal offense of bigamy, they can
no longer file joint income tax returns, etc.  However, if a couple
is married in the eyes of God a civil divorce cannot change that
fact.

An annulment does not dissolve a marriage.  An annulment is an offi-
cial statement that a man and a woman who had gone through a marriage
ceremony and had lived together as man and wife were never really
married to each other because some condition in existence at the time
of the marriage prevented a true marriage from occurring.  Strictly
speaking the authority that issues an annulment does not annul the
marriage.  It states that the marriage was null, that is, that it
never occurred.  The reason for obtaining an annulment in the Church
is so one can marry (not remarry) someone else without being accused
of bigamy.

Annulments, as I've said, exist in civil law and in church law, al-
though the grounds for an annulment--the invalidating impediments as
the Church terms them--are not always the same.  I will not attempt
to list all of them.  Some impediments come from God.  Some are
matters of Church law.  The Church has the authority to grant dispen-
sations from its own laws, but not from God's laws.  A brother and
sister, for example, can never marry.  It is not that they ought not
to marry, but that they cannot marry.  If a brother and sister who
were orphaned, separated as small children, and raised separately
were to meet as adults, and, unaware of their blood relationship,
were to fall in love and marry, it would not be a valid marriage.  If
the fact of their blood relationship were to become known they could
no longer live together as husband and wife.  An annulment would
certify that despite the existence of legal records saying they had
married each other they were never really married to each other and
were free to marry other people.

More common examples of civil annulments would be bigamy and underage
marriages.  If a married man goes through a marriage ceremony without
divorcing his wife, that second ceremony is not a valid marriage
because under our laws polygamy is not permitted.  If the fact of
bigamy was discovered, the man's "first" wife could sue for divorce.
His "second wife" could get an annulment on the grounds that since
the man was not free to marry when he "married" her they were never
really married.  If teenagers elope and "marry" when one of them is
below the legal age of consent, their parents could have the "mar-
riage" annulled for that reason.

Marriage requires a free consent on the part of both parties.  I've
read of an annulment involving socially prominent people in the 19th
or early 20th century in which it was proven that the bride had not
consented to the marriage but had gone through with it only because
she was bullied into it by her domineering mother.  In recent years
Church authorities have been giving greater weight than before to
claims that someone was not psychologically capable of understanding
the nature of the marriage commitment or of making such a commitment.
I do not know what evidence is used to establish this fact. Some
Catholics claim that some progressive priests abuse this approach to
approve annulments when they are not justified, which may or may not
be true.  My pastor, who is solidly orthodox, once mentioned, in a
different context, that a neighboring diocese (that was alleged to be
unduly lax in granting annulments) had a high rate of annulments
because a larger than usual number of priests were assigned to work
on processing applications for annulments.

Marty Helgesen
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