Bishop Nickless comments on the important work of the Tribunal
People today sometimes ask, “How is it that the Church can give so many marriage annulments?” The number of dissolutions of marriages is a matter of deep concern. What is happening?
First, the tribunal of a diocese does not make a marriage invalid. Rather, after careful investigation of the facts, it may declare that a particular marriage was invalid from its inception. What does this mean?
It means that while they may have been a wedding, there may not have been a marriage. Especially in our culture, a wedding does not always produce a marriage. When a couple becomes engaged, they face an important question: Are we consenting to a wedding, or are we consenting to a lifelong union with all that this implies?
A midwestern archdiocese several years ago sponsored a workshop for pastoral leaders on the subject of marriage annulments. The speaker was a renowned professor of Canon Law, Father Francis Morrisey, O.M.I. He reminded his listeners that in the encyclical Humanae vitae, Pope Paul VI had provided a framework of five steps to be used in evaluating conjugal love and its presence for a true marriage union: 1) It must be fully human, implying the engagement of the mind and the will along with human capacity; 2) It must be total, generously sharing everything; 3) It must be faithful and exclusive until death; 4) It must be fruitful, that is, open and ordered to the raising up of new life; and 5) It must be moral, taking into account one’s duties to God, to oneself, to family and to society.
Psychological problems can affect the validity of a marriage. A valid marriage requires full consent, that is, one must will or choose to be married, and in order to consent to marriage, one must fully understand what lifelong commitment means.
One must have the psychological capacity to enter into a lifelong commitment. Some who consent to a wedding suffer a serious lack of discretion of judgment in regard to the essential rights and obligations to be mutually given and received by husband and wife. There may be a temporary inability to make a sound judgment because of drug addiction or alcoholism or deep depression. There are also ways in which a person may lack the freedom necessary to give full consent to a lifetime marriage. An example might be a young girl who is pregnant or a person who leaves home to get out of an impossible situation or a person who marries on the rebound.
Father Morrisey, at the workshop mentioned above, spoke of certain types of immaturity that can have a bearing on the ability to give valid consent to marriage. One who has been the victim of sexual abuse may carry deep psychological wounds that would make it very difficult to make an informed and mature decision for a marriage partner. Children whose family experience includes multiple divorces and infidelities may not know any other way of being married. People whose background was marked by violence or abuse of various kinds may not be prepared to make a prudent decision when they decide to marry. Such circumstances, while not automatically invalidating, can contribute to the invalidity of marriages.
When a marriage of many years is declared to have been invalid, the question is often raised, “How is that possible?” Father Morrisey used the example of the Ford Pinto, a compact car produced in the early 1970’s. In a rush to compete with other auto manufacturers, Ford built in a potentially fatal design flaw in the placement of the fuel tank in the rear of the car. It turned out that when the Pinto was rear-ended in an accident, the fuel tank would easily rupture and any source of a spark would ignite the gas. If the crash was over 40 mph, there was also the possibility of the doors being jammed, trapping the passengers inside. Father Morrisey noted that if the Pinto was never in an accident, it did not explode, but if that accident occurred, most likely there would be an explosion, and even fatalities. He said that some marriages are like the Ford Pinto: they have a “design flaw” from the beginning, and if there is ever a “crash” in the form of some trauma or unexpected circumstance, they may very well “blow up.” Such a union may have been invalid years ago, at its beginning, but it only came apart years later when there was a disruptive and unexpected trauma.
There are also certain mentalities in our contemporary culture that make it more difficult for people to consent to marriage as the Church understands this lifelong sacrament. We live in a “throwaway society” with a divorce mentality that creates an atmosphere in which one or both partners at their wedding may think, “If it doesn’t work, I can get out of this.” There is also a contraceptive mentality that allows people to see children as merely an obstacle to a successful career. When children and young people grow up in such a culture, it is hard for them to view marriage as a lifelong commitment marked by openness to children. Mentalities such as these produce seeds of weddings that may not produce marriages.
In January 2002, the Dean of the Roman Rota, in his address to Pope John Paul II, made a comment on the increase in marriage nullity cases in church tribunals. On the one hand, the increase in the number of marriage cases shows that Christian values are being challenged by the secular culture in which people live today. That culture includes civil marriages, separations, divorces and cohabitation. But on the other hand, the increase in marriage cases also reveals the eagerness of people to seek peace of mind through the Church’s definitive judgment on their failed marriages. More people are deeply convinced that only such a declaration by the tribunal can succeed in restoring them to full communion with the Church.
It is the prayer of the Church that God’s people grow in truth and wisdom as they assess the culture in which they live, that they are strong in challenging the culture, and that they avail themselves of the grace to set an example to our children and young people that marriage is an indissoluble and exclusive partnership open to procreation and loving families.
Most Rev. R. Walker Nickless
Bishop of Sioux City