Pope Francis makes it easier for Catholics to remarry

The announcement by Pope Francis of an extensive revision of the marriage annulment process within the Catholic Church has the support of the director of Family Life Ministry for the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston.

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

“I think it won’t have any effect on us or people who are dealing with divorce or annulments here in Massachusetts”, said David Wilkinson, a local divorce attorney.

Under the new changes, bishops can now issue what’s called a declaration of nullity, an annulment, or he can train others in the church who can handle these cases.

The Catholic Church does not recognize divorce, as one of its main doctrines is the lifelong commitment of a marriage.

Under the new rules, annulments no longer require two separate judgments; one will suffice.

Alejandro W. Bunge, secretary of the commission that drafted the changes, speaking at a Vatican news conference on Tuesday.

Bishop Charles Thompson of the Evansville Catholic Diocese is excited about the visit of Pope Francis to the United States later this month.

The Pope said the procedure needed to be quickened so that Catholics who sought annulments should not be “long oppressed by darkness of doubt” over whether they could have their marriages declared null and void.

“[Pope Francis] wants the Church to be more like a field hospital, rather than a bureaucracy”, Reese says. He said the diocese traditionally processes between 120 to 200 petitions annually, and that the process now takes about a year.

Just 61 per cent of African Catholics seeking annulments in 2012 completed the process, while in the west, where Catholics can afford to hire canon lawyers, 86 per cent received annulments.

In the document, Francis also emphasized that all marriages will be consider an indissoluble union.