Posted on 11/10/2004 6:37:01 PM PST by 1stFreedom
Thank you for clarifying your view on this.
My opinion -- and I say again that I am not an expert -- is that your understanding of 1095.3 is incorrect. You are interpreting it as if it dealt with the quality of the consent given during the wedding ceremony. That is not the intent of it. It deals with the capacity of the parties to live a married life, as distinct from the capacity to give consent to the marriage.
Consider the parallel case of impotence. It is possible that impotence is present but neither party is aware of that until after the ceremony. This is a condition present at the time of the ceremony, but it does not impair the "discretion of judgment" of the parties: they fully understand what they are promising. What they do not understand is that one of them is not able to comply with the promise.
In the same way, they may be unaware that one of them is not able to live up to the essential obligations of marriage, owing to psychic incapacity. For example, one of them may have a severe psychological problem that he has been compensating for (masking), which becomes apparent when he is married and causes him to so freeze out his spouse that communication is impossible. As another example, one of them may be homosexual and so much in denial that he does not realize it, but discovers it only after getting married.
The reason I am saying that "he does not realize it" is that, if he did realize it and were concealing it, that concealment would by itself be grounds for annulment under another canon. I want to give a simple example here.
1095.3 is not a blanket get-out-of-jail card. It does not say that a marriage is invalid if "it doesn't work out." There has to be some real, and serious, psychological issue.
The existence of 1095.3 broadens the available grounds beyond those implied by 1095.2. I doubt, however, that it broadens them so much that all the annulments granted by USA tribunals are justified. You are right to be concerned that tribunals, in many dioceses, seem to be finding nullity where it does not exist. The appearance of abuse is certainly there. I do not really know the truth of the matter, and don't think about it very often, but I share your concern.
Thanks for your reply...
I haven't investigated 1095.3 very much...
I'll ask my canon lawyer for some clarification on it
While my focus is primarily on 1095.2, 1095.3 does seem to open the door to symptoms which may be present at the exchange of vows but not evident. (Ie, if you are a serial wife murderer, you may not be killing your bride at the altar.)
I don't have any authoritative summaries on 1095.3, but below are some decision from the Rota. I'm not sure if they are representative cases (Rota jurisprudence) or isolated decisions. (Some of them seem to fall under 1095.2 more than 1095.3 IMO, but then again, I'm not on the Rota.)
One immediate danger sign is that some of these rulings come from Monsignor Cormac Burke, a priest who sits on the Rota. In many aspects he seems to be a solid priest, yet he himself is involved in controversy concerning anullments and marriage.
For the sake of clarity, I'll post about Msgr. Burke in another reply.
Sinkspur, your thoughs pls.
######
Some Rotal Decisions; Indicators of Psychological Incapacity
From a canonical perspective, Natural Law demands the previous and natural capacity to assume those marital obligations which are contracted. Absence of such a capacity in interpersonal integration or psychological maturity before marriage.
2. Coram Stankiewicz, SRRD, Dec. 18, 1987. The kind of psychological maturity congruent with the obligations of married life: mental, affective social.
So, an incapacitated person suffers from:
2.1. mental immaturity
2.2. affective immaturity, when he/she cannot dominate his/her impulses, emotions
2.3. social immaturity in not being able to adapt to reality and interpersonal integration.
3. Coram Pinto, SRRD, February 12, 1982. 3.1. The pathological abnormality must be
(1) serious,
(2) antecedent and
(3) incurable and
(4) perpetual.
4. Coram Pompedda, SRRD, February 19, 1982.
4.1. Supervening incapacity cannot nullify a marriage.
4.6. lack of independence
4.7. narcissism, egoism, etc.
4.8. alcoholism
5. Coram Stankiewicz, SSRD, December 8, 1986.
5.1. Ambivalences and profound obsessions
5.2. Hysterics
5.3. homosexuals and perverts
5.4. excessive anxiety
5.5. flight into an imaginary world
8. Coram Cormac Burke, SRRD, December 15, 1996.
8.1. Insistence on abortion
8.2. Repeated refusal of offspring
9. Coram Cormac Burke, SRRD, November 11, 1994.
9.1. Incapacity for interpersonal relationship
10. Coram Cormac Burke, SRRD, November 25, 1993.
10.1. Obsessive-compulsive
10.2. Narcissistic , phobic
11. Coram Aidan McGrath, SRRD, June 13, 1988.
11.1. Multiple sclerosis can cause incapacity to assume marital obligations
12. Coram Serrano, SRRD, April 5, 1973.
12.1. His personality was not directed toward his partner (or lack of interpersonal relationship)
12.2. Insensitivity to the presence of the other person 12.3. Paranoid personality
13. Coram Stankiewicz, SRRD, July 11, 985. Sources of emotional immaturity:
13.1. Immaturity connected with adolescence
13.2. Immaturity rooted in the personality structure
14. Coram Pinto, SRRD, April 9, 1973.
14.1. Rejection of offspring by contraception 14.2. Pre-marital abortion
15. Coram Pinto, SRRD, March 18, 1971.
15.1. Anti-social personality disorder
16. Coram Pinto, SRRD, July 15, 1977.
16.1. Vaginismus or psychic impotence
16.2. frigidity Note: Both impede interpersonal relation.
17. Coram Teodoric, SRRD, January 19, 1940.
17.1. Nymphomania: The woman cannot remain faithful to husband.
18. Coram Heard, SRRD, January 30, 1954.
18.1. Lethargic encephalitis affected his nerves and mind, he was guided by instinct. Before marriage, he chased girls, ripped their clothing, raped his own sister, was cruel to animals, irritably extreme jealousy of his wife, refused to work, sang daily to himself.
Primary and secondary ends of marriage
In recent months there has been a controversy with respect to the primary and secondary ends of marriage. In the course of it, Monsignor Cormac Burke has said that a "development in doctrine" has occurred, which of course does not contradict the past, and that now, in the light of development, we should no longer speak of primary and secondary ends of marriage, but rather of "coessential ends," which sort of do equal each other.
The position is based, he says, on the Code of Canon Law, the Catechism, and the philosophical "personalism" of the Holy Father. But the Magisterium has never explicitly overturned the "old" teaching, and has made no explicit statement that the two ends of marriage are equal.
The Second Vatican Council is of very much greater weight than either the 1983 Code of Canon Law, or the Catechism of the Catholic Church (which in any case do not contradict or correct it). The Council did retain the primary/secondary teaching (but not the terminology) by saying:
By their very nature, the institution of matrimony itself and conjugal love are ordained for the procreation and education of children, and find in them their ultimate crown. (Gaudium et Spes, 48)
Whatever is ordered to another thing, or for the sake of another thing, is by very definition subordinate to that other thing. That is, it is secondary to the thing to which it is ordered, and that to which it is ordered is primary.
Can a partial explanation of this position of Monsignor Burke et al. be perhaps a misguided "loyalty" to the Pope? They think this is what he wants, even though one will search in vain for any statement of this or any Pope urging us to rid ourselves of the teaching in question [primary and secondary ends].
In fact Bishop Karol Wojtyla, one of the chief architects of Gaudium et Spes, wrote the following:
"One should be careful to take into account this context and the personalistic norm in understanding and presenting the traditional teaching of the Church about the ends of marriage.
The Church, in presenting the principles of the order of nature, (the laws of nature) which are corroborated by revelation teaches that the mutuum adiutorium and the remedium concupiscentiae constitute a secondary end of marriage in comparison with procreatio, which is its primary end. The Church decidedly rejected all attempts to shift this order.
Obviously, it cannot be accepted that man and woman (excepting the case of acquired or congenital infertility) would join together in marriage primarily in the end of mutual fulfillment or bilateral completion (mutuum adiutorium), for this is not in keeping with the plan of the Creator both in the order of nature, that is, in the light of the reason and in the light of revelation, as well as in the order of grace.
It cannot be doubted that the realization of the one in the other order--thus in the light both of reason and of Revelation--takes place along with the taking into consideration of the personalistic norm. It could hardly be otherwise, since man and woman are persons, and especially since--as Christians--they are conscious of the normative power of the commandment of love. This commandment by its normative power must shape the realization of all the ends of marriage--and this must be precisely according to the objective hierarchy which the church guards. (emphasis added)"
This text shows that in the mind of this very active participant in the council, who now providentially occupies the throne of Peter, and who as Pope has never corrected or contradicted this position, we are vigorously to retain the distinction between the primary and secondary ends of marriage and of conjugal love. These ends are part of human nature, and we all know that the natural law is immutable.
So let us please stick to the explicit teaching of the Holy Father, and not attempt to impose what we are so sure is implicit in his teachings. Is it not usually the progressives who try to tell us what the Pope really means?
You see, as I indicated in a previous post, that alcoholism, in and of itself, is a factor in nullity, even if the alcoholic was not inebriated at the time of the ceremony.
You have summarized the canon well. In fact, "inability to contract a Christian marriage" is the most common ground of nullity today. "Chronic immaturity," meaning that a physical adult is simply unable to psychically live as an adult (manifested in neglect of family duties, frequent job changes, and addictions of one kind or another), is another common ground.
Blotter has pointed out better than I that one of the spouses is psychically deficient, and that deficiency may not manifest itself until after the ceremony, sometimes a year or two later.
That deficiency can be grounds for annulment.
Sink...
I'm checking this out with a canon lawyer.....
I think that possibly there are a few problems with our exchanges.
1. My posts have primarity been on 1095.2 and "lack of due discretion"
2. I don't know enough about 1095.3 to address it.
3. Your replies to threads in context of 1095.2 are overly broad. You could have simply said "this is permissible under 1095.3" -- that could have clarified things. Instead you simply argue in the context of 1095.2 that the bloated grounds are acceptable.
4. The conditions still do not mean automatic nullity -- they still have to be grave/severe. Even alcoholism does not provide automatic nullity.
No psychological ground is "automatic."
But, in my entire time in the tribunal, any case involving alcoholism or even alcohol abuse was granted nullity, unless the alcohol abuse manifested itself years after the ceremony.
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