“Pope: Easy Annulments Undercut the Value of Marriage,” USA Today:
Pope Benedict XVI says granting annulments too easily is undercutting the value of lifelong marriage.
In a speech Saturday, he asked the Vatican’s highest appeals court to consider reviewing church rules on marriage annulments.
He told to the members of the tribunal of the Roman Rota, that “lack of faith” on the part of the spouses can affect the validity of a marriage, according to Religion News Service. …
According to canon law, the validity of a marriage requires that both the man and woman freely and publicly consent to the union and that they have the psychological capacity to assume the obligations of marriage.
But “Immaturity or psychic weakness,” the most frequently cited reasons for seeking an annulment, are not good enough reasons, Pope Benedict said, according to the Catholic News Service report.
“Lebanon’s Top Cleric Issues Fatwa Against Civil Marriage,” AFP:
Lebanon’s top Sunni Muslim authority on Monday issued a fatwa against moves to legalize civil marriages inside the country, where couples of different faiths have to travel abroad to tie the knot.
The religious edict came a day after President Michel Sleiman tweeted that he would remain steadfast in supporting such unions, while Prime Minister Najib Mikati wrote on his Twitter account that a consensus was required to address the issue.
Grand Mufti Sheikh Mohammed Rashid Qabbani issued the fatwa branding as an apostate any Muslim politician who approves civil marriage legislation.
“Any Muslim with legal or executive authority in Lebanon who supports the legalization of civil marriage is an apostate and outside the religion of Islam,” he said on the website of Dar al-Fatwa, the official institution for fatwas. …
Sleiman, a Christian, tweeted that he would “respond to the evolution and aspirations of the people and prepare the appropriate laws for the issue of civil marriage.”
“Television’s Changing View of Marriage,” Alyssa Rosenberg:
In a recent discussion of sitcoms in the New York Review of Books, inspired by both “The Mindy Project” and two new volumes on TV history, Elaine Blair writes that:
“Mindy might love watching ‘When Harry Met Sally,’ but she is a character in a television sitcom, not a Hollywood romantic comedy, so we can be pretty sure that her own romantic life is going to be different from Sally Albright’s: Mindy is going to be unlucky in love. Not just in the pilot episode or during the first season, but probably for years, or as long as the show is renewed.”
But Blair is wrong: This is actually a terrific moment for televised marriage. While the travails of single girls remain a subject of television comedy, no longer is tormenting spinsters for viewers’ amusement the dominant trope. In fact, exploring what happens after the white dress and the honeymoon is increasingly one of network television’s advantages over cable, which has made full use of its license to deploy sex and violence, but spends less time on the triumphs and tragedies of everyday life.
January 31st, 2013 | 7:53 am
In the case of the American marriage tribunals, Pope Benedict XVI might be tempted to imitate the way in which his predecessor, Benedict XIV dealt with the perceived laxity of the Polish diocesan tribunals.
Having issued a warning to the Polish bishops in his letter “Matrimonii perpetuum,” of 11 April 1741, in his Encyclical “Nimiam licentiam” of 18 May 1743, he warned them that, if there was no correction of abuses in dealing with them, all Polish marriage cases would be reserved to the Roman Curia, even in the first instance.
Benedict XIV was the greatest canon lawyer to occupy the chair of St Peter; only Innocent IV runs him close.
January 31st, 2013 | 10:14 am
Pope Benedict XVI says granting annulments too easily is undercutting the value of lifelong marriage.
The question in my mind is that if annulments are granted “too easily,” are they really annulments? An annulment is not a divorce. It’s a finding that the marriage (or at least a sacramental marriage) never happened in the first place. If annulments are granted too freely, then what is happening is that people who are validly married are erroneously being told that they are not.
January 31st, 2013 | 12:33 pm
David Nickol
I much prefer the Scottish name, “Declarator of Nullity” to “Annulment,” in contrast to a “Decree of Divorce.”
Of course, like any other judge, the ecclesiastical judge can be mistaken as to the facts, or err as to the law. That is why it was a rule of the Canonists that a sentence in a matrimonial cause was never “res judicata,” but always remained open to re-examination, a rule found in the Liber Sextus c 24 and confirmed in the Instruction “Cum moneat Glossa,” Sacred Congregation of the Council, August 22, 1840. The reversal of such a sentence could lead to a subsequent marriage being void for pre-contract.
January 31st, 2013 | 3:28 pm
Why not move the analysis upsteam? That is, look at marriage preparation and do some longitutidnal studies to see how those couples fare. I know priests who have presided at the sacrament of marriage while being pretty sure that particular couple will not have a lasting marriage. Why do we allow such couples to marry in the RCC in the first place?
February 1st, 2013 | 5:02 am
I agree with Catholic Health Care Sister, but would recur to the Pope’s point that “’Immaturity or psychic weakness,’ the most frequently cited reasons for seeking an annulment, are not good enough reasons.”
We have only to consider that for nearly 2,000 years, the canonical age of marriage was 12 for girls and 14 for boys (although impuberty was an independent impediment), until the Code of 1917 raised them to 14 and 16 respectively (1917 CIC 1067).
For sixty generations of Christians, canonical and pastoral practice accepted nothing short of idiocy or insanity rendered someone incapable of entering into the most natural contract in the world.
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