A Simple Fix to the Annulment Issue

I'm not a canon lawyer, so I just want to throw this out and see if I'm missing something




I recently had someone come to me who is totally on fire for the Catholic Faith, wants to join the Church, is devouring Catholic videos and homilies and cd's etc.

And she's been married four times.  None of those marriages was in the Church.  I recently got word that it looks like three different annulment cases.


You know what would fix all this?  If we, as a Church, said "If you aren't married in a Catholic Church, it wasn't a marriage in the first place."


That might upset the ecumenical movement a little bit, but we already talk about some of their other 'sacraments' being invalid, and, in all honesty, most protestant aren't going to care one bit if the Catholic Church says that the Catholic Church doesn't recognize their marriages as valid.



If we said the only time you need an annulment is if you were actually married in the Catholic Church, that would free up about (I'm guessing) 75% of our marriage cases.


And let's think about it - what protestant denomination does marriage preparation like we do?  If two people get married at a Baptist Church, do we really think they were taught and had, going into the marriage, the Catholic Church's understanding of what they were doing when they made their vows?



If you were married in the Catholic Church, you need an annulment.
If you weren't married in the Catholic Church, but now want to join, welcome to the Catholic Church!

The Real Problem Facing Marriage (and priesthood and RCIA etc.) in the West

... a lot of people don't give a rats rear end about oaths/vows anymore.


"She isn't the person I married anymore"

"The priesthood isn't what I thought it would be"

"I didn't know piresthood/marriage/religious life would be like THIS!"

That's why people walk away from marriage so much, and that's why more people walk away from the priesthood and religious life as well.


It's the same for people joining the Church.  They spend all this time coming to class for a year.  Every week.  And I tell them, multiple times, that one of the most fundamental things to being a Catholic is coming to Mass on Sunday.  Barring illness or caring for another who is ill, the obligation to come to Mass is not negotiable.

"Woohoo, I'm Catholic now.  Surely the priest didn't mean I'm obligated to go to Mass EVERY Sunday"

And people stand up at the Easter Vigil, make vows and oaths and promises to be Catholic, and half the people that join the Church fall away with a few years.  HALF!!!!



I just want to stand up sometimes and say to all of the people that break these vows in a definitive way:   "DIDN'T YOU MAKE A VOW?"



One thing is clear in the Scriptures - God DOES NOT mess around with oaths and vows and promises.  God even holds people to stupid vows that they made in order to make sure people understand that a vow is for real.  It isn't fake, and it is SERIOUS BUSINESS!


Catechsim 2147: Promises made to others in God's name engage the divine honor, fidelity, truthfulness, and authority. They must be respected in justice. To be unfaithful to them is to misuse God's name and in some way to make God out to be a liar.


The only thing that has kept me in diocesan priesthood on several occasions has been the fact that I made oaths and promises to this.  But if oaths and vows and promises are not binding, in their minds, anymore, then apparently they aren't binding.


After all, we're all our own gods now anyways, so if my mood changes, I can just rewrite or obliterate any promises I've made in the past anyway.

Do you promise...
Yes...unless it gets tough

Synod Document Based on Evangelii Gaudium?

I've followed the Synod as closely as time permits, which is to say I've no doubt missed a lot.


One of the things that seems odd to me is the proposal by the more progressive groups to structure the final document of the Synod on the Pope's letter from a couple of years ago - Evangelii Gaudium (The Joy of the Gospel).


If the Synod were on the new evangelization, this proposal would make sense to me.


But "family" is only mentioned 11 times throughout the 288 paragraphs of Evangelii Gaudium.


Aren't there a lot of good things written EXPLICITLY ABOUT THE FAMILY over the past few years that this Synod could utilize as a framework, vs. a letter on evangelization?


But perhaps those making the suggestion that the Synod's final document be based on a letter the Pope wrote two years ago about evangelization are actually not wanting to structure the Synod document around anything the Church has ever taught before?

Synod Transparency

My one issue with way the Synod on the Family is going down is transparency

Whatever happened to this idea?

I'm all for the theological experimentation and I recognize that a Synod is a good time to look at controversial issues, be open to the Spirit, etc.   I also recognize that you want to keep the vast majority of the Church safe from confusion

But locking the doors and keeping the Synod under wraps does NOT PROTECT THE PEOPLE OF GOD, it EXACERBATES the confusion!


What happened to St. John XXIII's request to "Throw open the windows of the Church...so the people can see in."???



Yeah, ideally, all the cardinals and archbishops could go hide somewhere, have theological discussions, even yell and scream at each other, and then come back with a nice and neat Synod wrap-up press conference...but nothing is ever ideal on this side of Heaven.


So we're left with a couple of alternatives
1) close the doors, and let the media spin the Synod into whatever they want it to be

2) throw open the doors, and let people listen in on every word of the Synod and draw their own conclusions.



"BUT...the People of God will be confused/scandalized/not able to handle the messiness of these things if we open the doors and let people listen in on everything" some might say.


NEWSFLASH - this confusion/scandal/messiness is being conveyed despite the doors being closed.  Not only that, the people that want to explain the messiness/scandal/confusion CAN'T because we don't have anything definitive to point to and say "Be calm.  Take heart.  This is what is ACTUALLY happening."



These meetings used to happen behind closed doors.  That's impossible now.  Open doors then beat the disastrous alternative that is currently being employed.



If you want to know how to fight against confusion and let the truth speak for itself, we need look no further than what Bishop Coyne and his staff at the USCCB communications department did with the Pope Francis visit.  Read Bishop Coyne's blog post (Click HERE to read it) about how they covered the visit, engaged people, got the word out, etc.  It was a SMASHING SUCCESS.

The team from the USCCB working around the clock to get every word  of the
Holy Father's visit out to the world.  The Vatican should be doing this too.  If we
don't let the Truth tell the story of the Synod, the media will tell our story for us

There should be a TEAM of people at the Vatican broadcasting this Synod, getting every speech out there in text, video, etc.  LET IT ALL OUT, OPEN WIDE THE WINDOWS!




Implied in fearing to get the word out is the idea that the laity can't handle the messiness of what actually happens.  I think that is selling our lay people WAY short.  Our people understand that the process by which these things get pulled together is messy at times.  They can handle it.

"Open wide the windows of the Church so that we can see out and the people can see in."

Or are we only going to do this SOME of the time?

"I wish the Church would change its teaching on __________________"

“We do not want, as the newspapers say, a church that will move with the world. We want a church that will move the world.”  -G.K. Chesterton


There is a GIGANTIC difference between saying
"I struggle with the Church's teaching on ____________"

and 

"I've DECIDED the Church IS WRONG on ____________"



And before you say "the Church changed on usury or slavery" please look those issues up yourself and do some studying first.