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The Vatican may soon require a more restrictive approach to annulments. A Rome conference held in late April focused on canon 1095 of the Code of Canon Law, which allows a marriage to be declared invalid if one of the parties lacked the ability to consent because of “causes of a psychic nature.” More annulments are granted on the basis of this canon than all the others combined.
Historically the church has interpreted the capacity for consent fairly narrowly – requiring only a fitting age, freedom of choice and being of sound mental health. However some feel that a pastoral desire to help people has led to an overly loose interpretation of the canon. Otherwise those whose marriages have failed find themselves unable to marry again if they wish to continue to receive the sacraments.
Sheila Ranch Kennedy successfully had her annulment overturned which had been granted to her husband, U.S. Congressman Joseph Kennedy. She claims the American marriage tribunals allow canon 1095 to cover “almost anything … from personality traits such as self-centeredness, moodiness or being eager to please, to unproven ‘disorders’.”
Polish Bishop Antoni Stankiewicz, dean of the Roman Rota, the Vatican court that handles most marriage cases, told the Roman conference that interpretation of canon 1095 must avoid an “anthropological pessimism” that would hold that “it’s almost impossible to get married, in view of the current cultural situation.”
“We must reaffirm the innate human capacity to marry,” Stankiewicz told the group.
The session during which Stankiewicz spoke was presided over by American Cardinal Raymond Burke, who heads the Apostolic Signatura, the Vatican’s equivalent of the Supreme Court.
Stankiewicz argued that Christian doctrine insists upon a “natural disposition to marriage” because the “gift of Christ is not exhausted in the celebration of the wedding. It extends to all of married life, supporting the spiritual growth of the spouses in the necessary virtues, duties and commitments of marriage.”
His conclusion was that church courts should not be quick to presume an inability to give consent.
“We can’t equate incapacity with a lack of moral virtue,” he said. “Otherwise we would be saying that only saints can have valid marriages.”
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