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.

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.

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.

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.