Francis’ annulment changes stress prompt decisions, power of local bishops

Sep 17, 2015

Joshua J. McElwee
Pope Francis has substantially and significantly altered the process for those seeking annulments of marriages in the Catholic Church, eliminating sometimes lengthy and redundant judicial procedures and empowering local bishops to make judgments on their own in “particularly evident” cases.

The changes — announced at the Vatican Tuesday, Sept 10 with the release of two formal documents signed by the Pope known as Motu proprios — reflect a decided and new shift in delegating power from the Church’s central command to local prelates around the world.

They also may represent the most public difference yet between Francis and his predecessors John Paul II and Benedict XVI, who had widely sought to limit the number of annulments in fear of creating a sort of back-door divorce process for Catholics.

In a short introduction to the new changes, Francis explains that he wanted to balance the Church’s timeless worry to provide for the salvation of souls with “the enormous number of faithful that … too often are detached from the juridical structures of the Church at the cause of physical or moral distance.”

“In total harmony with these desires, I have decided to give with this Motu proprio arrangements that do not favour the nullifying of marriages but the promptness of the processes,” states Francis, so that “the heart of the faithful that wait for the clarification of their state may not be oppressed for a long time by the darkness of doubt.”

An annulment in the Catholic Church is a decree from a church tribunal that a marriage between two persons was invalidly contracted. Such a decree is often sought by persons who are seeking to celebrate a different marriage.

The changes announced by Francis modify the procedures for obtaining annulments in two key ways: Eliminating a sometimes lengthy process requiring a second judgment on all annulment decisions and allowing local bishops a so-called “shorter” process to personally judge on cases considered particularly straightforward.

The changes also, in a new take on a since-abandoned practice, allow any first appeals of annulment decisions to be made at the local diocesan level instead of at the Vatican. Appeals from smaller dioceses will now be made at metropolitan archdioceses, which are the archdioceses that are normally closest to the diocese in question.--NCR