Skip to content
The Catholic Leader
  • Home
  • News
    • QLD
    • Australia
    • Regional
    • Education
    • World
    • Vatican
  • Features
  • Opinion
  • Life
    • Family
    • Relationships
    • Faith
  • Culture
  • People
  • Subscribe
  • Jobs
  • Contribute
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
    • QLD
    • Australia
    • Regional
    • Education
    • World
    • Vatican
  • Features
  • Opinion
  • Life
    • Family
    • Relationships
    • Faith
  • Culture
  • People
  • Subscribe
  • Jobs
  • Contribute
No Result
View All Result
The Catholic Leader
No Result
View All Result
Home News

Too many annulments: Pope

byStaff writers
8 February 2009
Reading Time: 2 mins read
AA
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

VATICAN CITY (CNS): Granting marriage annulments too easily and without real cause plays into a modern form of pessimism that basically says human beings are not able to make lifelong commitments to loving another person, Pope Benedict XVI said.

“We run the risk of falling into an anthropological pessimism which, in the light of today’s cultural situation, considers it almost impossible to marry,” the Pope said in a speech on January 29 to members of the Tribunal of the Roman Rota.

The tribunal mainly deals with appeals filed in marriage annulment cases.

Pope Benedict said there was still a need to deal with a problem Pope John Paul II pointed out in a 1987 speech to the Roman Rota, that of saving the Church community from “the scandal of seeing the value of Christian marriage destroyed in practise by the exaggerated and almost automatic multiplication of declarations of nullity”.

Pope Benedict said he agreed with Pope John Paul that too often members of Church tribunals saw a failed marriage and granted the annulment on the basis of an ill-defined case of “immaturity or psychic weakness”.

According to canon law, the validity of a marriage requires that both the man and woman freely and publicly consent to the union and that they have the psychological capacity to assume the obligations of marriage.

Pope Benedict said tribunal judges must remember there is a difference between the full maturity and understanding that people should strive to develop over time and “canonical maturity, which is the minimum point of departure for the validity of a marriage”.

In addition, he said, granting an annulment on the basis of the “psychic incapacity” of the husband or wife required that the tribunal established and documented the fact that the person had a serious psychological or psychiatric problem at the time the wedding was celebrated.

In defending the permanent and sacramental nature of marriage, tribunals were not making life difficult for couples that wanted to split up, the Pope said.

Defending the marriage bond gave witness to the fact that the ability to love and to pledge oneself to another forever was part of human nature, he said.

Related Stories

Celebration marks Sister Angela Mary’s 75 years’ service to Mater and Queensland

Confraternity Carnival ready for a full return in Mackay next week

Parents of young mother considered for sainthood share powerful testimony at World Meeting of Families

ShareTweet
Previous Post

HOTEL FOR DOGS – Focusing on relationships

Next Post

Year 8 laps up a MacBook bounty

Staff writers

Related Posts

Celebration marks Sister Angela Mary’s 75 years’ service to Mater and Queensland
QLD

Celebration marks Sister Angela Mary’s 75 years’ service to Mater and Queensland

25 June 2022
QLD

Confraternity Carnival ready for a full return in Mackay next week

24 June 2022
Parents of young mother considered for sainthood share powerful testimony at World Meeting of Families
Vatican

Parents of young mother considered for sainthood share powerful testimony at World Meeting of Families

24 June 2022
Next Post

Year 8 laps up a MacBook bounty

'Netters' sent on a mission

Champion effort in faith and sport

Popular News

  • Archie’s beating heart means he is not dead, according to a Catholic institute

    Archie’s beating heart means he is not dead, according to a Catholic institute

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Three Queensland deacons preparing for priestly ordinations in the next week

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Parents of young mother considered for sainthood share powerful testimony at World Meeting of Families

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Confraternity Carnival ready for a full return in Mackay next week

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • First man ordained to priesthood for Brisbane Oratory

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
Search our job finder
No Result
View All Result

Latest News

Celebration marks Sister Angela Mary’s 75 years’ service to Mater and Queensland
QLD

Celebration marks Sister Angela Mary’s 75 years’ service to Mater and Queensland

by Staff writers
25 June 2022
0

MATER yesterday celebrated the extraordinary service Mercy Sister Angela Mary Doyle has given to Brisbane – on...

Confraternity Carnival ready for a full return in Mackay next week

24 June 2022
Parents of young mother considered for sainthood share powerful testimony at World Meeting of Families

Parents of young mother considered for sainthood share powerful testimony at World Meeting of Families

24 June 2022
Three Queensland deacons preparing for priestly ordinations in the next week

Three Queensland deacons preparing for priestly ordinations in the next week

23 June 2022
Pope prays for victims of devastating earthquake in Afghanistan

Pope prays for victims of devastating earthquake in Afghanistan

23 June 2022

Never miss a story. Sign up to the Weekly Round-Up
eNewsletter now to receive headlines directly in your email.

Sign up to eNews
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Contact
  • Contribute
  • Jobs
  • Subscribe

The Catholic Leader is an Australian award-winning Catholic newspaper that has been published by the Archdiocese of Brisbane since 1929. Our journalism seeks to provide a full, accurate and balanced Catholic perspective of local, national and international news while upholding the dignity of the human person.

Copyright © All Rights Reserved The Catholic Leader
Accessibility Information | Privacy Policy | Archdiocese of Brisbane

The Catholic Leader acknowledges Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as the First Peoples of this country and especially acknowledge the traditional owners on whose lands we live and work throughout the Catholic Archdiocese of Brisbane.

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
    • QLD
    • Australia
    • Regional
    • Education
    • World
    • Vatican
  • Features
  • Opinion
  • Life
    • Family
    • Relationships
    • Faith
  • Culture
  • People
  • Subscribe
  • Jobs
  • Contribute

Copyright © All Rights Reserved The Catholic Leader

0
    0
    Your Cart
    Your cart is emptyChoose another Subscription
    Continue Shopping