Is Annulment with living ex partners an invasion of privacy?

In this blog instalment, the question is whether the Catholic Church still granting annulments of long marriages (what is long … 10…..to what 30 years or more) is really sensible in this modern day.

It’s a question of degree.  Are the partners of the marriage both still living or has one passed on.  Or has one become mentally incapacitated.

Moving on from incidents and accidents, see last article there may be a case for an annulment  in the situation of an accidental or health caused death.   There is less public resistance to that.

Where there is public resistance and even outcry, is for both partners still living Post divorce, and then having to suffer responding to what amounts to a second divorce proceeding.  It takes weeks of time to compile a response and months of involvement to navigate the ancient canon law tribunal process.

Really it does nothing to enhance the modern day standing of the Catholic Church.  Coming as a follow on the the child abuse from priests this is more abuse of married people frankly.

 

Let’s consider some grey areas and see what you think.   After a long marriage, as often in the news today, imagine you get early onset of dementia.  Unable to support you, your partner divorces you and leaves you to public health support.

There is then an annulment allowing for a Re-marriage in church.  The annulment is granted without your input as you are obviously too infirm and mentally incapacitated to respond.

 

Upon your death, you arrive at the pearly gates to find that since you marriage was

Annulled you are not eligible for heaven, since you never had a church wedding marriage, we’re ann andulterer or worse,  and you will spend your eternity in a hot place with no water!  All because you got dementia, and your partner, (who need not be Catholic) paid the going rate for an annulment.

 

There are many partners in marriages today suffering through burdens of coping with a partner in long term care for dementia.  It’s it right to undermine their saintly care and support, blessing instead those who leave a partner before they die, in sickness, and by default of no reply to the annulment get granted the decree.  There is no requirement in the current annulment process for the respondent to reply!  No investigation of whether there is still life.

 

As a further example consider the situation of this blogger-writer who while Catholic, after thirty (30) years of marriage and two grown sons, has to respond to he ex (non-Catholic) wife’s petition for an annulment.  Since this is her second marriage, the first having been annulled it seems more like form for the course and without substance to have yet another annulment.  It does seem to raise eyebrows and cause a certain “what the… hell” response.  The grounds are cited as “impure thoughts” so there is no actual transgression.  It does raise the question of whether this is an area for the Catholic Church to opine?

What are your opinions?  Is the “having a third white wedding in church” more of a need than that of the now separated family and their sensibilities and religious beliefs.  Is this interference in existing partner and family, grandparents and children relations now going too far?

From the straw poll so far it is considered not right, an invasion of privacy and religion gone “nuts”.

your parents' marriage relationship,

Response:

Respondent’s parents were married on 11/10/1956. Father, as a serving RAF Officer, defending the Western Front

(stationed in Germany) was prohibited by standing orders from dating any German Woman. He crossed the Dutch/German border,

dated, got engaged and married a Catholic Dutch girl. The Dutch Roman Catholic Church would not marry any ‘p

Catholic Church, so they instead crossed the border to German and were married in a Catholic Church in Germany. (Civil Ceremony

in Heerlen, Netherlands).

As a couple their marriage survived over sixty (60) years and over thirty (30) moves of house. Father passed away in April

2020 from an “embolism”, and Respondent attended Funeral during COVID lockdown via video (USA to UK).

As a couple they were mostly happy. Father was frustrated by Mothers Dutch English and inability pre-google to read a map

upside down. They had a few years living apart, but mothers strong Catholic upbringing brought them back together.

ii. your chronological place among your brothers/sisters,

Response. Respondent (Bruce) born 11/27/1958 eldest brother

Brother (Neal) born 1/10/1962

iii. relationship with your parents and sibling(s),

Response: “relationship with your parents”

The respondent was perhaps a little precocious and ‘gifted’ in ability. Modern diagnosis and tests would likely be ADHD - ADD

or similar. In reading tests aged eight (8) Respondent read the Charles dickens tome “A Tale of Two Cities” in forty (40) minutes with

ninety (90%) percent tested comprehension.

Having changed schools some six times before age seven, which disrupted his progression in learning offerings, he was not

an easy student to teach or keep his attention. Removed from Mathematics classes he was taught how to sew, so other students could

not be disrupted. Respondent ‘secured’ a direct grant scholarship to go to boarding school, with conditions of continued excellence, and

attended circa Kent College 1965 to 1977. From 1965 to 1977 Respondent was only home 20-25% of the year.

a) Father Relationship.

Not an easy man to please. Father was an only child, and cockney. He was an evacuated from London War