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Opus Dei Father Joaquin Llobell is a professor of canon law at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome.
– Pontifical University of the Holy Cross
Luis Navarro, professor of canon law at the Pontifical University of the
Holy Cross, said that no matter what the procedure is, ‘if a marriage is
valid, you cannot say it’s invalid — that’s very clear.’
BY EDWARD PENTIN
VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis’ decision to establish a commission aimed at
streamlining the annulment process is to be welcomed if the procedure is
carried out properly, a professor of canon law has said.
“Making the procedure faster is not something bad; the real issue is to do
things properly,” Luis Navarro, professor of canon law at the Pontifical
University of the Holy Cross in Rome, told the Register.
On Sept. 20, the Vatican announced that, on Aug. 27, Pope Francis had
established a commission to study reform of the annulment process. Chaired
by Msgr. Pio Vito Pinto, dean of the Roman Rota, the commission will
“focus on the preparation of a proposal for reforming the
marriage-annulment process, seeking to simplify and streamline the
procedure, while safeguarding the principle of the indissolubility of
marriage.”
The Vatican has yet to give details on what the commission might decide, but
observers say one option could be to scrap the current two-tier Church
decision-making system on annulments, leaving just one tier in place, unless
the annulment is contested by one of the spouses.
After one tribunal finds a supposed marriage to be null, the case must be
sent to an appeals tribunal to affirm the decision — a so-called
“mandatory appeal” or “second instance” — before it is official.
If the second opinion is different from the first, the case must be referred
to the dean of the Roman Rota.
“The main thing that can be improved is the second instance, to see if
it’s always needed or not,” said Navarro. “There can be cases in which
there’s no need for a second instance.” He added that this procedure can
be changed “because it’s not divine law.”
Edward Peters, professor of canon law at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in
Detroit, wrote in a Sept. 22 blog post that a mandatory appeal “seldom
results in reversing affirmative decisions made in the first instance and
amounts, therefore, in a many-month delay in completing cases for no obvious
reason.”
“Besides,” he added, “if one does not trust the officers of the first
instance to reach a sound result, why should one trust the officers of the
second? While they sit on different cases, they are often the very same
people.”
The proposed changes are also necessary because there are too few people
well prepared to be fully effective in this area, according to Opus Dei
Father Joaquin Llobell, also a professor of canon law at the Pontifical
University of the Holy Cross.
In addition, Father Llobell said it’s clearly not possible to identify the
failure of a marriage with an annulment. “To prove that a marriage has
broken down is very simple,” he said. “But it’s more complicated for
an investigation to lead a court to ‘moral certainty’ over nullity.”
In an address to the Roman Rota in January, Pope Francis stressed the need
for an ecclesiastical judge to show justice but also mercy and pastoral
charity. He should be a “servant of justice, called to treat and judge the
condition of the faithful who turn to him in trust, imitating the Good
Shepherd, who takes care of the wounded sheep,” the Pope said. “Because
of this, he is animated by pastoral charity, that charity that God has
poured into our hearts.”
But it was Benedict XVI who first hinted at the need for reform to help
those who may have entered into marriage without adequate awareness of the
sacrament or were not in possession of an authentic faith.
In 2011, L’Osservatore Romano published some notes of Benedict XVI on the
theme, in which he wrote: “Particularly painful is the situation of those
who were married in [the] Church but were not really believers and did so
because of tradition. Then, finding themselves in a new, invalid marriage,
they convert, find the faith and feel excluded from the sacrament of the
Eucharist.”
He added that this is “really a cause of great suffering, and when I was
prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, I invited various
episcopal conferences and experts to study this problem.”
The announcement of the new commission came amid preparations for the Oct.
5-19 Extraordinary Synod of Bishops on “The Pastoral Challenges to the
Family in the Context of Evangelization.”
One issue that had taken precedence prior to the synod is that of holy
Communion to divorced-and-remarried Catholics. Some have suggested the
Pope’s commission announcement may be one acceptable solution to the
problem and an alternative to Cardinal Walter Kasper, who, according to
Peters, appears to favor banishing the annulment process altogether.
But concerns remain that such a move, although acceptable to many, can make
it seem as if the Church is making annulments easier and that the Church is
“lowering the bar” at a time when marriage needs to be strengthened and
upheld.
Navarro stressed he did not know what the commission will study or conclude.
But he argued that “if a marriage is valid, you cannot say it’s invalid
— that’s very clear, whatever procedure you use.” He added that any
proposals of changes to the process that say there’s “going to be an
answer in two days without studying the case, then, of course, that is
wrong.”
“I am simply saying if the procedure can be done properly, there is
nothing wrong with making it faster,” he said.
Members of the new commission headed by Msgr. Pinto will also include
Cardinal Francesco Coccopalmerio, president of the Pontifical Council for
Legislative Texts. Both are synod fathers for the Vatican synod on the
family. Professor Llobell said, in view of this, it will “not be difficult
to have a fruitful exchange of information and cooperation” on this issue
during the Oct. 5-19 meeting.
In a recent interview with Catholic News Agency, Cardinal Raymond Burke,
prefect of the Apostolic Signatura, stressed that the Church has to have an
“apt process” to establish whether or not a marriage has been null. And
he rejected the view of having a so-called “pastoral process” instead,
one in which “people simply tell their story to a priest,” who then
makes the decision with regard to their reception of the sacraments. “How
does that respect the truth of Our Lord’s teaching about marriage?” he
said.
“The marriage-nullity process is the fruit of centuries of development and
by various expert canonists, one of the great ones being Pope Benedict
XIV,” the cardinal said. “For us now simply to say we don’t need that
anymore is the height of pride and therefore foolishness.”
ABYSSUS ABYSSUM INVOCAT / DEEP CALLS TO DEEP 