Bishop Malone reacts to easing restrictions on annulments in the Church

Monsignor John Bonzagni of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield told 22News that an annulment is a trial that determines whether or not there was a fundamental flaw in a couple’s marriage sacrament, making it what the church calls “invalid”.

Vatican experts deem that the revisions laid out by Pope Francis are by far the most promising ones made to the church’s annulment process in the past centuries.

The process of annulment has long been criticised for being complicated, costly and out of reach for many Catholics.

Francis will release the new rules after a Vatican-appointed commission of canon lawyers spent the past year studying ways to simplify the process while safeguarding the principle of the indissolubility of marriage, the Vatican said. It can also be used when other proof makes a more drawn-out investigation unnecessary.

“From the legal side of it, if someone wants to get an annulment, this doesn’t fast-track that at all“.

The reform is thought to be an important scene-setter for the Bishops’ Synod on the Family which Pope Francis will convene next month in Rome.

Brendan Butler of “We Are Church Ireland” said he welcomed any reforms which would speed up annulments and allow bishops more discretion.

Currently, Catholics can get their marriage annulled if certain conditions are not being met like free choice, psychological maturity and willingness to have children.

In recent years, Aymond noted, annulments have taken an average of one year to be granted in New Orleans.

“I think people need a second chance, when they really mean well and want to make that kind of commitment to another person”, he said. The automatic appeal will no longer take place. This option would be available in cases where both parties agree to an annulment, and where evidence for marriage dissolution is especially strong. Those who don’t and who remarry in civil ceremonies are considered by the Church to be still married to their first spouse and living in a state of sin.

Charlene Huval, a Breaux Bridge resident, says “It’s amazing that in this day and age we have a modern Catholic leader who’s urbanized, whose liberal and understanding the needs of our people of this generation”.