Annulment: a Catholic divorce, or something else entirely?

Posted by Sappho on August 24th, 2005 filed in Marriage

While the Catholic Church does not permit divorce and remarriage, it does allow remarriage in the case where a tribunal of the church has found that, under canon law, no marriage ever existed. This is what’s known as an annulment. Grounds for getting one vary: for example, a marriage may be annulled if either the bride or groom was not old enough to marry, or if it was never consummated (evidently the latter ground requires an appeal to the pope). But the broadest set of grounds involve consent: Did the couple, in fact, consent to what is involved in a Catholic marriage? Or was there some impediment? Impediments may be psychological (e.g. an undiagnosed mental illness) or involve an incorrect intention (such as an undisclosed unwillingness, on the part of one spouse, to have children).

Here is an explanation of the Catholic Church’s position on annulments

All of this makes a certain intuitive sense; after all, in the most obvious cases (marriage took place under duress), wouldn’t most of us agree that consent is critical, and that the couple aren’t really married? Where it gets controversial is that some grounds affecting consent (psychological state, intentions, etc.) are, after all, open to interpretation. Some argue that tribunals in the US give annulments out too freely, so that in fact they become a kind of “Catholic divorce.” Others argue that the tribunals take care to try to uphold the validity of marriage (there is, for example, a “defender of the bond” who is supposed to argue on behalf of the marriage), and that annulments are granted because there are, in fact, that many invalid marriages.

Here are some sources of further information about annulments:

Rev. Patrick R. Lagges, J.C.D. on Annulment – What It Is – and Isn’t

ReligiousTolerance.org on Catholic annulments

UPDATE: Fixed missing links.