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1. Too little, too late

   Posted By: Greg

2. As an annul-ee, I humbly suggest that marriage failure is, in the main due, to the 'damage' one person or both persons have sustained in their development.
   That 'damage' could be spiritual, mental, emotion/psychological or physical, or some combination of any or all of them.
   To successfully sustain a marriage requires a strong maturity of personality and, when that is not the case, the pressures of life can tip the balance against faithfulness and commitment.
   After thirty years now as a celibate single, my reflection is that the greatest problem my husband and I had in sustaining the marriage was personal immaturity - especially as this was not recognised by either of us, either in ourselves or in the other.
   Our annulment was granted on these grounds.
   I can honestly say that lack of Faith or love of God was not the main issue - we were, and are still, fully committed and practicing Catholics.

   Posted By: Helga Jones

3. In 1982, the late Fr John English SJ told a group of us in the Jesuit Retreat House, Guelph, Ontario, Canada, that from time to time individuals whose marriages had been declared null and void by the Church came to him for counselling.
   These were persons who knew in their hearts and souls that their marriages had been genuine. They hadn't sought the declaration of nullity and knew it to be a sham.
   This is another aspect of this painful and difficult area that is seldom mentioned.

   Posted By: Fr Sean Coyle

4. After 27 years of marriage, I agree with Helga that maturity and preparation is very important to start a good marriage.
   Also that age does not necessarily a predictor of maturity.
   I also believe that you have to be prepared to share and compromise and be ready for life to throw some surprises your way. Because I was idealistic and life just doesn't run that smoothly.
   I am still married. My husband is not Catholic, but has supported me in my faith and all our children are Catholic. So I don't think it is faith alone.
   As for annulments, they are known to be a sham and if you have the money you can acquire one. Example: Princess Caroline of Monaco and I know of more. I believe there is need for divorce in some circumstances.

   Posted By: Cate

5. Please print a correction to your article: the Church does not teach that a remarried divorced person cannot receive communion.
   It teaches that a divorced remarried person who is having sex with someone other than their original spouse cannot present themselves for communion since they would be committing the sin of adultery. Remarried divorces living chaste lives may receive communion.

   Posted By: Rod Hamar

6. Maybe the Church will confront modern reality.

   Posted By: fr.doncoutts@gmail.com

7. Sean: I find it strange to hear you say the Catholic couple you refer to hadn't sought the declaration of nullity.
   If a marriage is annulled by the Church (as mine was years ago) the couple have to gain a divorce first (if they choose to) and their marriage is only examined by the church if the couple ask it to! Maybe you are referring to something else??
   Cate: with respect, you don't seem to be speaking from any experience of annulment.
   It is not automatically a sham.
   The Catholic Church has annulled, I would think by now, hundreds of thousands of marriages (although, as you probably know, many ask for an annulment and it is not granted because the Tribunal determins a genuine marriage existed from the start). Each couple who receives an annulment pays a small fee to cover the time taken to interview relevant people.
   So, you are mistaken in saying anyone can get an annulment as long as you have the money. I bet there have been couples whose request for an annulment was rejected (after examination) who would have gladly paid heaps of money if that was all that was involved!
   Can I suggest you look a little deeper and stop quoting the old Princess so and so line. You are actually implying, BTW, that Pope Benedict, by not getting rid of annulments, is somehow involved in a sham, which is nonsense.

   Posted By: Mike Yates

8. I hope I am not raising a topic that can get a Bishop relieved of his office, like women priests.
   To talk about the lack of faith may hurt the goods of marriage is very important.
   I remember cautioning a young man (24 yrs) back in the 1960s who claimed to be an agnostic, against rushing into marriage with young devout catholic girl.
   But I love her, he insisted.
   Well, I said rather pompously, I hope your love can overcome your lack of faith.
   They did get married. They are still married after 47 years. He is still an agnostic. She is still a devout catholic. As far as I know their children and grandchildren are all catholics.
   To me the crucial element in christian marriage is love. Faith helps but love conquers.
   Marriages fail for a variety of reasons. One of the most common in my experience is that one or both partners fall out of love with one another.
   Limiting the opportunity for couples to be freed from the marriage bond by saying the bond was never there in the first place (for whatever reason - immaturity, deception, false motive) which basically is what annument is all about overlooks the fact that faith and love can die. In much the same way faith and love can die for a consecrated religious (a bride of Christ).
   I think Greg is right. Concentrating on faith is too little, too late.

   Posted By: Joe

9. Mike Yates: I think you've missed the point of Fr Coyle's post.
   He was drawing attention to the real distress people might feel at not being able to go along with this whole concept of annulment.
   They had no reason to doubt that they had been married the first time; in all practical, emotional and psychological ways (what other ways mean anything?) they had been married. Their consciences would not allow them to go through what they felt was a device or charade to get them off the hook. Yet they suffered because they clearly could not continue in that first marriage and effectively the Church was saying 'unless your putative marriage is annulled, you are excluded and any relationship you have is sin.’
   Your experience and result of annulment is clearly a happy one. These people would not be happy if their first ‘marriage’ was annulled because they think it would be a colossal lie.
   The canonical subtleties of pronouncing that no sacrament took place in face of the daily experience of lived conjugality are lost on these people and are incomprehensible to many more.
   There are only two positions that pay due respect to the existential reality of conjugal relationship as it is experienced - either that the first-time vow is always paramount and no going back is ever to be allowed or recognised; or that marriage is not at all permanent but a day-by-day proposition and only as permanent as the partners make it.
   

   Posted By: smk

10. Before maintaining a lifetime obligation, it is important to verify there was a real marriage. Thus, the annulment process.
    Yes, two people thought they intended to get ‘married’ and participated in a marriage ceremony.
    For example, marriage absolutely includes the acceptance of children from the conjugal union, if either or both of had agreed beforehand that, ‘there would be no children’, then no marriage occurred, because they accepted only the name of marriage while rejecting its reality.
    Ditto if either or both didn’t accept the vow, ‘Until death do us part,’ intending to divorce if things did not work out.
    Sadly, there are cases where the annulment process appears to be a sham. I was present when a priest stated publicly that he viewed his task as 'Defeating the bureaucratic obstacles to giving the petitioner an annulment.'
    That priest did not seem to understand that the task the Church had entrusted to him was to establish the truth about whether a real marriage had or had not occurred.
    The natural presumption is that a real marriage had occurred unless some hard evidence could be produced to establish that it had not.
    In recent years, recognition that if a ‘marriage’ appears to be totally dead, that condition could be at least minimal evidence that perhaps a marriage had never existed. The failure of the marriage is not conclusive evidence in itself.
    But it does invite a reasonable and careful examination of the facts of the issue.
    
    
    

    Posted By: James Harris

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