Posted on 09/09/2010 7:44:11 PM PDT by verdugo
You wrote:
“There were between 35-50 annulments WORLDWIDE prior to Vatican II.”
Incorrect. There were actually routinely a few hundred every year in the USA alone before Vatican II.
“From there forward annulments in the USA ALONE got up to like 90,000 per year.”
I’m not so sure about that since the number in 1990 was 62,824
“If the USA had never existed, there would be almost no annulments world wide, as it use to be. what are the odds that the USA annulments are valid 10 in 60,000?”
The odds are excellent. The simple fact is that the marriage prep until recently (and, sadly in many places still today) was horrible.
“All those Catholics who received invalid annulments, if they re-married, are living in adultery.”
Not knowingly and therefore there would be no culpability. The real issue is are those invalid. And the answer is, NO.
Ping for later
And make no mistake, divorce is a much bigger attack against the marriage institution than same sex marriage.
In face if society had kept their respect for marriage the topic of same sex marriage wouldn’t even be broached. It’s because they know we have very little respect for marriage already that they would even dare to demand it.
Ping
True, and I believe Cardinal Josef Ratzinger who was a big supporter of that reduction. Marriage tribunals in many Dioceses have undergone major changes in the past few years.
“I forgot. This is the delusional “we believe in fairy tales” page.”
Yeah, I used to say things like that.
Let me ask you a question. If there were a Supreme Being who was capable of bringing the universe into being, ex nihilo, wouldn’t it be reasonable to think He would be able to make Himself known, unmistakably, to anyone He wished?
That is, that He would be able to announce Himself in such a way that there was no possibility of error?
It seems certain that such a Supreme Being would be able to do that...and yet some people dismiss any such phenomena as impossible, on the grounds that there is no God, and they know this because God does not make Himself known.
That’s about as circular as reasoning can get.
Well, wireman, there is a God, and He does make Himself known to people, in ways that are beyond any possibility of error. He doesn’t do that to everyone, and He apparently hasn’t done it to you. I hope He does.
I believe the ruling would still be invalid, but they would not be guilty of adultery of they re-married others:
What if on a later day they read up on annulments and realize they have a bogus ruling. Then I would say their innocence is gone. If they were re-married, they would have a problem, because they would be have the awareness of living in adultery from that day of enlightenment forward.
Incorrect. There were actually routinely a few hundred every year in the USA alone before Vatican II.
My source stats show 392 annulments Worldwide from 1952 to 1956. In the past I was shown stats in the 1930's at 35 or so.
re: I’m not so sure about that since the number in 1990 was 62,824
We agree, since I don't have written stats past 1990. I was writing from memory. 60,000 or 90,000 versus 50 or 100, not much difference, amounts to almost nothing
The odds are excellent. The simple fact is that the marriage prep until recently (and, sadly in many places still today) was horrible.
That's a cliche. Any simple illiterate Indian in South America knows that marriage is for life. It does not take much for the priest to teach them JUST THAT before they are married.
re:“All those Catholics who received invalid annulments, if they re-married, are living in adultery.”
Not knowingly and therefore there would be no culpability.
The real issue is are those invalid. And the answer is, NO.
The culpability does not make or break the invalidity. The ruling would still be invalid, but they would not be guilty of adultery if they re-married others, while still believing they had a valid annulment. What if on a later day they read up on annulments and realize they have a bogus ruling. Then I would say their innocence is gone. If they were re-married, they would have a problem, because they would be have the awareness of living in adultery from that day of enlightenment forward, and would be culpable
yes, I was about 40.
I have a recollection of a statistic from 2006, that there were 50,000 - 60,000 annulments worldwide, with about 60% of them being in the US.
This appears to represent roughly a 40% drop-off in the US from their peak in the 1990s.
You may not have seem my post, or perhaps you think I asked in bad faith, but I'm serious and sincere in asking what you think of the validity of putative Catholic marriages where one or both partners just don't accept the Church's teaching on contraception. Or abortion, or the indissolubility of marriage. Or fidelity in marriage.
Thanks,
sitetest
A Catholic goes to Mass every week if not every day. Are you sure you aren’t a lapsed/inactive Catholic?
Some of your posts suggest that.
**I KNOW exactly what the rules are**
The rules for annulments are very complicated. Are you sure about that statement?
What is a no-form annulment?
“What happens when, five years later, one of the two young folks realizes that what they're doing is wrong, and tries to bring his/her spouse to repentance, but fails”?
The problem with invalid annulments comes into play when the parties re-marry another person. If this couple you mention seek an annulment based on what you say, and the one party continues to obstinately refuse to have children, then they have grounds for an annulment.
Was the marriage invalid all the time, yes. Do they need to get re-married again with the proper intent, I “think” so, BUT, They really need to talk to a good priest. (I went to 5 different priests to do my FULL general confession after being out of the Church for 40 years, till I was satisfied I had confessed to two good priests.)
Thanks for the response. I don't always agree with everything you post, but I like your style. ;-)
I guess my point is, do you believe that these marriages, where spouses enter privately dissenting from pretty fundamental Catholic doctrines related to marriage and sexuality, like contraception, fidelity, etc., are initially valid?
I'm gleaning from your answer that at least with some of these issues, you don't believe that such marriages are sacramentally valid. I'm not altogether sure. I'm not versant enough in the theology of marriage as a sacrament.
But if the Church teaches that such marriages, at least in some cases, aren't valid, well, then...
I know that there have been abuses of the process of obtaining declarations of nullity.
But I also know that our culture has deteriorated a lot in the last hundred years, and that we Catholics now swim in a cesspool of culture that is largely alien to us, in terms of morality.
Think about it: A hundred years ago, no Christian ecclesial group accepted the morality of contraception. Divorce was a great scandal. Sex outside of marriage, too, was a great scandal. So on and so forth.
Catholics lived in a culture that although it wasn't necessarily Catholic, it was one that upheld much of Catholic morality, especially Catholic morality related to sex and marriage. Catholics were formed by the culture in ways that weren't necessarily opposed to Catholic belief.
But not so today. The larger culture is pretty hostile to Catholic morality. Lots of folks laugh at us for continuing to hold the unchanging teaching of the Church regarding contraception. Pre-marital sex? Marital fidelity? Indissolubility of marriage? What? Are you kidding??
I see this even in the parishes with which I'm familiar. My sons attend a youth group at a neighboring parish (not our own). I permit them to attend because the pastor of the parish is heavily involved in the group, he's pretty orthodox, and he's hired a group of pretty orthodox adult adults (not young adults) trained in apologetics, and especially apologetics to young Catholics. The program, while not perfect, is pretty darned good.
But the problem isn't with the staff of the youth group, or with the priests involved. It's with the youth themselves, LOL!
When the folks started a talk on homosexuality, they asked the young folks what they thought about the topic. My son stood up and said, “Homosexual orientation is a grave objective moral disorders, and homosexual acts are intrinsically evil and therefore never morally acceptable under any circumstances.” Yay, sitetest’s son!!
But he nearly started a riot! The other kids started calling him a homophobe, and worse. It took some effort for the adults to get control back of the situation. Once control was re-established, the adults affirmed what my son say, but in ways to smooth over the situation. They ARE trying to reach these kids, and it does no good to chase them away.
Now, most of these kids are children of good, devout, Mass-attending Catholic families. Many of them go to the local Catholic school. Many are publicly-schooled. But a critical difference, in my view, is that my sons were homeschooled through 8th grade. We sheltered them (yes we did) during the most impressionable ages, and did our best to teach them the Catholic faith. I'm not terribly knowledgeable about the faith, but I've tried to be so, especially so that my wife and I could do the most important thing given to us: transmit our Catholic faith to our sons. The only other young folks in agreement with my son were the children of another homeschooling family. Although even they thought my son was a bit impolitic, LOL.
So, I ask you, would it surprise you that large number of younger Catholic adults are badly malformed catechetically, so malformed that perhaps they don't successfully contract sacramental marriages?
I know that not all declarations of nullity have been on the up-and-up. But I suspect that the number of truly invalid marriages may be a lot more in this country than a few hundred per year. I wouldn't be surprised if a substantial minority of putative marriages are contracted invalidly.
Now, that result points in another direction: perhaps the Church needs to be tougher in whom it permits to marry within the Church. Maybe. But I know the resistance that pastors local to me when they demand that couples stop co-habitating for at least six months before they're permitted to marry in the Church.
Just some thoughts.
sitetest
You wrote:
“That’s a cliche.”
No, sorry. I have had too many conversations with canon lawyers about this to consider it a cliche.
“Any simple illiterate Indian in South America knows that marriage is for life.”
Exactly - and these AREN’T marriages. That’s the point.
“It does not take much for the priest to teach them JUST THAT before they are married.”
Actually it does. It takes much - much that most priests lack. I have friends who were taught that birth control was just fine BY THEIR PRIESTS IN PRE-CANA CLASSES.
“The culpability does not make or break the invalidity.”
Adultery is what you mentioned.
“The ruling would still be invalid, but they would not be guilty of adultery if they re-married others, while still believing they had a valid annulment. What if on a later day they read up on annulments and realize they have a bogus ruling.”
That is almost logically impossible unless they lied during the process and they would already know that.
“Then I would say their innocence is gone. If they were re-married, they would have a problem, because they would be have the awareness of living in adultery from that day of enlightenment forward, and would be culpable”
And that doesn’t happen so your scenario is essentially meaningless.
The majority of annulments are for psychological reason, unheard of in the history of the Church. 90% of all appeals to Rome come back against the ruling for annulment from the USA Bishops.
If a person that has an annulment and is re-married to another, later learns more about annulments, and realizes that his annulment may have been, likely was bogus, they have an obligation to correct the situation, for they may be living in adultery.
You wrote:
“The majority of annulments are for psychological reason, unheard of in the history of the Church.”
Incorrect. Defects because of psychological reasons have been discussed in annulment cases since at least the 12th century. As the old Catholic Encyclopedia (written a century ago!) notes: “It is clear that the impediments improperly so-called are as varied as the ways in which the validity of the matrimonial consent, psychologically considered, can be affected.”
It should be no surprise to anyone who has actually studied this issue that the Church understands psychology better now then it once did and this is at the same time as a tremendous cultural and ecclesial crisis in which marriage is almost universally misunderstood (especially since the rise of birth control).
“If a person that has an annulment and is re-married to another, later learns more about annulments, and realizes that his annulment may have been, likely was bogus, they have an obligation to correct the situation, for they may be living in adultery.”
And there is no reason to believe that happens. 1) Those who seek annulments always believe there is a valid reason for the annulment. They do not later “learn” that they were mistaken when they filed for the annulment. 2) It is always the reverse. People learn their marriage may have been invalid and file for the annulment.
see my new thread “American Annulment Mills”, for more information on, from article:
“About two-thirds of American annulments are based on canon 1095, which involves psychological opinions—hardly an exact science and subject to facile adulteration”..... the tribunal admits that there really is no way to assess the condition of the bride’s and groom’s minds when they exchanged vows (consent), but that the behavior of the couple ten or twenty years hence can reveal, with moral certitude, that they suffered from a grave lack of discretionary judgment concerning essential matrimonial rights and obligations of permanence, fidelity and openness to children at the time of their wedding. Yet these same couples, despite allegedly incriminating evidence of contractual incapacity for ten or twenty years, can suddenly transmogrify into having adequate capacity for a second marriage!...
Realistically, the very few people incapable of contracting marriage as specified in canon 1095, are so deranged that they simply don’t get married. “
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