[JAKraig]

I was told that, since marriage is indisoluble, I could petition for a decree of nullity.

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Whether or not you believe the marriage is indisoluble, it great to have a pope with keys to undo the marriage on earth and in heaven. That is of course if you believe the pope has those keys.

If you are a Roman Catholic of course you believe he does. If you are a Protestant you have to believe like Luther that he does not. If you believe like Luther then you have to believe that the Roman Catholic church is a dead church and not truly Christian since it went astray. If it is a dead church the question must be asked, “What day or year did it go astray?” Until you can find the point when it was not true it is hard to say it is not true.

If it did not go astray then the Protestant had no reason to leave and the Popes excommunication of all Protestants must stand. A real conundrum here.

[Balt]

Whether or not you believe the marriage is indissoluble, it great to have a pope with keys to undo the marriage on earth and in heaven. That is of course if you believe the pope has those keys.

You clearly did not read my response to Mr. K. carefully. In any case, no one believes the Pope has "keys" to dissolve a valid marriage. What the Church does possess is the ability to determine, based on the objective criteria of what constitutes a valid marriage, whether a particular union was, in fact, a valid marriage. A decree of nullity does not dissolve a valid marriage; it is a declaration which states that, after investigation, what was believed to have been a valid marriage was not because certain conditions required for any marriage to be valid did not exist at the time the marriage occured, and that this deficiency was unknown to the parties involved at the time.

[SuziQ]

If you are a Roman Catholic of course you believe he does. If you are a Protestant you have to believe like Luther that he does not.

Scripture says that Jesus told his disciples that what they declared bound on Earth would be bound in heaven, and what they declared loosed on Earth would be loosed in heaven. Since we believe the Pope is the Successor of Peter, what went for Peter, goes for the Pope.

Upon request. a Marriage Tribunal investigates whether or not the SACRAMENT of Matrimony was valid. If it wasn't valid, either party is free to receive that Sacrament, again. The state has already declared the marriage dissolved, the Church doesn't do that.