Last month, Daniel Nichols over at Caelum & Terra blogged an entry entitled An Open Wound, in which he shared the news of couple that he and his family knew and with whom had once been close having received an annulment. They had been married over twenty years and were blessed with nine children, whom they homeschooled. The couple had in all manner been devout, articulate, exemplary Catholics. After some amount of time, however, the wife left her husband and eventually applied for and obtained an annulment. An annulment is a finding from the Church that sacramental marriage, which Catholics hold to be unviolable, never happened. And Mr. Nichols’ reaction to this news, and any sane person’s reaction would have to be,
[I]f they can get an annulment, anyone can!
…That the Church has come to this—providing excuses for sins against God and man—is a scandal, an open wound in the Body of Christ.
Lord have mercy.
A scandal, properly understood as an inducement for others toward sin, is precisely what this is. But what makes it a scandal is not merely this one particularly egregious instance, but as is shown in the fine comment exchange between Mr. Nichols and several astute commenters, just how easy it is to get the Church in America to agree with people wanting "out" of a marriage that sacramental marriage never occurred. It would seem that the only way one couldn’t get an annulment from the RCC in America is if one was too stupid or too lazy.
Almost anyone can "prove", or anyone with a mediocre lawyer can, at any rate, prove that they "just weren’t ready" for the commitment of marriage on their wedding day. And what is more, that is all that is required. Never mind that you were perfectly "ready" for commitment on a thousand other days after that day, the Church (apparently, I’m not a expert in Canon Law) says those days don’t count. All that sticking together through good times and bad, the birth of nine children, teaching NFP to young couples, all those days of faithfulness and commitment to each other and Christ’s Church, all those thousands of ways in which folks may have ratified the true sacramental nature of their union, gone with the stroke of a pen, gone in a wisp of smoke. Gone, that is, if you merely prove that 20-odd years ago, you "just weren’t ready".
A few statistics. According to this source, we find
For the year 2002: of the 56,236 ordinary hearings for a declaration of nullity, 46,092 received an affirmative sentence. Of these, 343 were handed out in Africa, 676 in Oceania, 1,562 in Asia, 8,855 in Europe and 36,656 in America, of which 30,968 in North America and 5,688 in Central and South America.
Let’s get this straight: Worldwide about 82% of requests for annulment are granted?!! Must’ve been a lot of "no fault" annulments. Let’s get this straight, of all the granted annulments worldwide, two-thirds were granted in North America??!!! I’m certain it must be the tragically low average age of first marriage in North America; all these poor immature boys and girls being forced into marriages (so often at gunpoint) without the least amount of preparation or "real world" experience. Things are just so much harder these days than they were for example in 1968 when there were (according to this source, SSPX yes, but broadly consistent with other numbers I’ve seen) 338 annulments granted in the US. Something stinketh here!
So what was supposed to be invoilable is actually quite easily violated. Violated really by a simple technicality, reserved for the rare case when the ability to choose marriage with free will was violated, or when a marriage was never consummated. I am hereby reminded of Christ’s taking of the Pharisees to task:
"Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.’ But you say that if a man says to his father or mother: ‘Whatever help you might otherwise have received from me is Corban’ (that is, a gift devoted to God), then you no longer let him do anything for his father or mother. Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down."
Mark 7:10ff (NIV)
Jesus said what God hath joined, let not man put asunder. But you, Catholic Bishops of the United States and your legal minions, by your technicalities give aid and comfort to those who for their own selfish reasons, or for just about any reason apparently, would tear apart what God has joined. And by such technicalities (wide enough for a Hummer to drive through) you have nullified the words of Christ, such that it remains no longer even plausible that the RCC (at least in America) actually believes in the inviolability of sacramental marriage. Why not take the more honest, the Protestant approach and simply bless serial polygamy? For while it is deformed and thoroughly pagan, I think it would be less deformed than the current practice.
Popularity: 1% [?]
Steve