Pope Francis has said he wished that all marriage annulment processes could be free of charge.
In an address to the Roman Rota in January, the Pope said: “The sacraments are free. The sacraments give us grace.
“And a matrimonial process pertains to the sacrament of matrimony. How I wish that all processes were free.”
The Pope also told the Rota that because contemporary culture portrays marriage as a “mere form of emotional gratification”, people often marry without a true understanding of the sacrament.
Therefore, many such marriages might be invalid.
“The judge, in pondering the validity of the consent expressed, must take into account the context of values and of faith – or their presence or absence – in which the intent to marry was formed,” Pope Francis said.
“In fact, ignorance of the contents of the faith could lead to what the code [of canon law] calls an error conditioning the will.
“This eventuality is not to be considered rare as in the past, precisely because worldly thinking often prevails over the magisterium of the Church,” the Pope said.
This sort of error “threatens the stability of marriage, its exclusivity and its fecundity, as well as marriage’s orientation to the good of the other, of conjugal love as a ‘vital principle’ of the consensus, of mutual giving to establish a lifelong union,” Pope Francis stressed.
The Pope also called for “pastoral conversion” of ecclesiastical structures.
This is so that justice can be offered to “all those who turn to the Church to shed light on their matrimonial situation”.
He observed that the great challenge faced by the Church’s canonical judges is “not to keep the salvation of persons enclosed within the straits of legalism”.
“The function of law is guided toward the salus animarum [salvation of souls] on the condition that, avoiding sophisms distant from the living flesh of people in difficulty, it may help to establish the truth of the moment of consent: whether it was faithful to Christ or to the deceitful worldly mentality.”
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