Annulment The Wedding That Was

"The question-and-answer format provides an overview of the marriage law of the [Catholic] church and its practical implications and makes difficult concepts understandable to the nonexpert."--Cover

Marriage will always be a subject of law and of great interest to both legal scholars and sociologists alike because the anthropology that support marriage perceives justice to be a particular reality. With respect to realization of justice in marriage, the Catholic intellectual tradition has identified a legal category that does not exist anywhere else--namely, the consensual incapacity to marry. the Code of Canon Law promulgated in 1983 contains a juridical innovation (canon 1095), but this has not yet been fully digested by American canonists. Furthermore, its application reveals a vast disconnect with historical exegesis. In the last fifty years, American canonical practice in the sphere of marriage law has lost its foundation. The consequences of this include mechanisms of judgment that are rendered incoherent although not inactive--in other words, the application of law in the Catholic Church moves forward without a clear indication of its anthropological basis. Canon law, then, must either be oppressive or absolutely meaningless. There is one canon in particular that in its formula of consensual incapacity to marry is the center of the attempt to define and resolve this question: canon 1095. As of this moment, however, there is no comprehensive treatment of this canon in its current usage and how it developed into positive law after hundreds of years of implicit reference to the grounds for marriage nullity that it now indicates. professors of canon law, members of the Roman Curia and judicial bodies acknowledge that more than a general response to this crisis of law and marriage what might be needed most is a revision of this single canon. they furthermore acknowledge that American canonical practice is perhaps the most influential in the world. A profile of this canon in American jurisprudence is fundamental and demanded presently. There are over one hundred tribunals of varying functions, over two hundred seminaries and more than five thousand seminarians (each year), seventy million Catholics and tens of millions of these Catholics call their vocation marriage. The question of marriage validity is eternal--both with respect to its relation to an historical past as well as individual present day unions. the readership is vast and this book will be included in syllabi in seminaries, Catholic universities and other faculties of sociology, religion and law. It will be a reference guide in tribunals and studied in the course of legislative reform, but it will also be accessible to both scholars and laypersons. the question of consensual incapacity is asked tens of thousands of times each year anew and there is not yet a definitive study that provides answers and guidance for further development of this notion. Another example of the longevity of this work: the manual it will effectively replace was in print for twenty years with five editions (L. Wrenn, 1970, CuA).

Many marriages are “ended” by separation or divorce, but for the baptized Christian they remain valid marriages forever. There are, however, cases in which a Christian marriage can be recognized as null, i.e. it never existed. This book, written by a specialist with a gift for clarity on a complicated, sensitive issue, is a guide for a first approach to the problems related to the conditions for eventually declaring the nullity of a canonical Christian marriage. This work is an indispensable aid for the pastors of souls, for Catholic counselors, and can be very useful also for anyone who has serious questions about the validity of his own marriage. The primary purpose of this work is to provide clear, well-founded information in sufficient quantity to parish priests and to all who will act as counselors in these matters, either in formally organized parochial counseling services, or in other possible forms of collaboration with the parish priest, or else in the ecclesiastical tribunals themselves as a step previous to the possible introduction of the case. Among the areas he covers are: Violation of the freedom of consent; Error about a person; Exclusion of offspring; Exclusion of fidelity; Incapacity to consent; Incapacity to assume the essential obligations of marriage; Conditional consent.

Bishop Robinson explains God's plan for marriage and the criteria the Church follows in granting a decree of nullity.

Many people believe that the Roman Catholic Church's teaching on marriage is clear and consistent: marriage is a sacrament, the marriage contract is indissoluble, divorce and remarriage are forbidden. In this book, theologians, historians, and sociologists overhaul the church's teaching and practice on divorce and remarriage, as well as personal testimonies from a number of persons who have gone through the annulment process.

In 1993, Sheila Rauch Kennedy received a letter from the Boston Catholic Archdiocese announcing that her former husband, Congressman Joseph Kennedy, was seeking an annulment of their marriage. If the Church granted the annulment, the marriage, which had lasted twelve years, would be rendered nonexistent -- not simply ended, as was stated in the divorce decree, but invalid from the start. And their two sons would be regarded as children of an unsanctified union. Joseph Kennedy needed the annulment to remarry within the Church, and he encouraged his ex-wife to ignore the details. Stunned by the hypocrisy of the process and the betrayal of trust it involved, Sheila Rauch Kennedy was determined to defend the legitimacy of her former marriage. Shattered Faith is the fascinating chronicle of that struggle, and of what Kennedy uncovered about the uses and frequency of annulments in the United States. Interweaving her own experiences with those of other women whose trust in the Church was shattered by annulment, she tells a story that will surprise, anger, and move readers of every faith.

You would not expect this from his dour reputation, but John Calvin transformed the Western understanding of sex, marriage, and family life. In this fascinating, even sensational, volume John Witte and Robert Kingdon treat comprehensively the new theology and law of domestic life that Calvin and his fellow reformers established in sixteenth-century Geneva. Bringing to light and life hundreds of newly discovered cases and theological texts, Witte and Kingdon trace the subtle historical forms and norms of sex, marriage, and family life that still shape us today.

"If you have been away from the Church for a long time, please have the courage to take the next step.... If for some reason you cannot obtain an annulment through no fault of your own, then learn more about the internal forum solution. It may be a viable option in your situation." Book jacket.