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Another good news post. The pope is cracking down on the Roman Rota, verbally at least. He is telling them that they need to be conscious of the "truth" when deciding annulment cases. This is revolutionary.

On the one hand, we can only be happy to see the pope sticking up for truth. But on the other hand, we must also wonder how we ever got to this point where even the Roman Rota asks with Pontius Pilate, "What is truth?" The pope admits that annulment cases are currently decided on an "instrumental" basis, meaning they do what they feel is for the good of the couple (grant the annulment) rather than examine whether the marriage is truly valid or not.

What about the people who questioned the validity of current annulments and were told to trust the "living magisterium"? Clearly these annulment cases were decided with no basis in actual fact. There must be tens of thousands of Catholics who are divorced and remarried today and who feel confident that they are justified by the piece of paper that tells them their first marriage has been annulled. Will they hear the same thing when they appear before God on judgement day?

Thank God that the pope is finally saying that "theological reference to truth is what should guide all those involved in such a process." Now will he say the same thing about other topics like the correct translation of "pro multis" --will theological truth apply in that case as well?

What's all the fuss about marital nudity? Sex and the body are not given to us for play. Making children is an unacceptable but necessary thing. Unless you are a priest or nun, which tells us something about what the church thinks about sex, necessary or not. It's what? Nullity? Oh, that's very different. Never mind.