The Strait Times - AFP, 8 Sep 2015
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| Pope Francis leads an Angelus prayer from the window of his study overlooking St. Peter's Square at the Vatican on Sunday. (Photo AFP) |
VATICAN CITY
(AFP) - Pope Francis on Tuesday (Sept 8) made it easier, quicker and free for
Catholics to have their marriages annulled under reforms regarded with
suspicion by conservatives who fear he may be opening the door to
Church-approved divorce.
Details of
changes to a system that critics including Francis himself had attacked as
needlessly bureaucratic, expensive and unfair were unveiled Tuesday with the
publication of a papal letter on the issue to Catholic churches across the
world.
In it, the
Argentinian pontiff says annulments will henceforth require only one decision
rather than having to be approved by two church tribunals, as currently.
A
streamlined procedure is to be introduced with most cases to be handled by
individual bishops rather than subject to a hearings process.
Appeals to
a Vatican court against individual annulments will still be possible but will
become the exception not the rule.
The Pope's
letter follows a year-long review by experts in canon, or religious, law. It
also asks bishops conferences to ensure there are no costs involved in the
process of securing an annulment.
While
Francis is seeking to democratise the procedure in a way that would appear to
make an increase in the number of annulments likely, his letter does not amend
the exceptional conditions under which they can be granted.
In his
letter, he strongly reaffirms the principle of the indissolubility of marriage
while highlighting the "enormous number of believers" for whom
annulment is currently not an option for various reasons.
Although
the notion of marriage being for life is one of the fundamental tenets of the
Catholic faith, divorce has become commonplace among believers across much of
the industrialised world.
Church
doctrine allows for unions to be cancelled - effectively declared to have never
existed - when the marriage is judged to have been fundamentally flawed from
the outset.
Possible
justifications for reaching this conclusion include non-consummation of the
marriage, one or both partners having entered into it without the intention of
staying in the relationship, or one of the partners having no desire to have
children.
Alcohol and
drug dependency can also be taken into consideration.
In
practice, access to the annulment procedure currently varies widely.
There is
virtually no provision for it in many dioceses in the developing world while
many ordinary Catholics in wealthier countries simply don't understand the
complex procedures or cannot afford expert legal help to guide them through
them.
For
centuries there has been a perception that annulments are more easily obtained
by the wealthy and powerful.
England's
King Henry VIII secured two and it was the Vatican's refusal of a third that
led to the creation of the Church of England in the 16th Century.
In one of
the most high-profile recent cases, Princess Caroline of Monaco obtained the
annulment of her first marriage, to Frenchman Philippe Junot, in 1992, leaving
her free to remarry in the Church.
There was
also controversy in 2006 when Australian actress Nicole Kidman married Keith
Urban in a Sydney church following her divorce from Tom Cruise.
Kidman was
reported at the time to have secured an annulment but it later emerged that the
Church in Australia had simply confirmed that it did not recognise her first
marriage because it had been conducted in Cruise's Church of Scientology.
Without an
annulment, a Catholic who divorces and remarries is deemed to be living in sin
and is unable to take communion.
Critics say
this exclusion of the divorced from the Church's holiest sacrament is cruel and
unfair. Why, they argue, should a murderer who confesses his sins be able to
take communion while a woman who seeks a divorce to escape a violent relationship
cannot.
The status
of divorcees and the Church's attitude to homosexual believers and unmarried
cohabiting couples are among questions being considered as part of an ongoing
review of Catholic teaching on the family.
Bishops
from around the world are due in Rome in October for a synod that will seek to
reach a consensus on these vexed issues before Francis decides what, if any,
reforms will be made.
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