News Digest

Pope radically simplifies Catholic marriage annulment procedures

Pope Francis, making the most substantial changes to Catholic marriage annulment procedures in centuries, radically simplified them on Tuesday and said bishops should provide greater help to divorced couples. Francis reaffirmed traditional teaching on the “indissolubility of marriage”, but streamlined annulment procedures which many considered cumbersome, lengthy, outdated and expensive. The reform was keenly awaited by many couples around the world who have divorced and remarried outside the Church. The 1.2 billion member Church does not recognise divorce and Catholics who re-marry in civil ceremonies are considered to be still married to their first spouse and living in a state of sin. This bars them from receiving sacraments such as communion.

Putting the poor at the centre is what distinguishes the reform of Pope Francis from those made by Pope Pius X and Pope Benedict XIV.

Monsignor Pio Vito Pinto

In the document, known as a Motu Proprio, Latin for “by his own initiative”, Francis eliminated a previously mandatory automatic review of an annulment decision by a second diocesan tribunal and gave bishops sweeping powers to quickly judge the most simple, clear-cut cases themselves. An annulment, formally known as a “decree of nullity”, is a ruling that a marriage was not valid in the first place according to Church law because certain prerequisites, such as free will, psychological maturity and openness to having children, were lacking. Monsignor Pio Vito Pinto, dean of the Vatican court that rules on annulments, told a news conference the new rules were the most substantive changes to annulment laws since the papacy of Benedict XIV, who reigned from 1740 to 1758.