Does Increasing Annulments Increase The Divorce Rate?

[southern california guy]

I need to get various things done, and watch a football game!, but I'll come back to this later. And list some references and talk about it more in depth.

I copied my brief statement from the other board.

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The basic argument is that because annulments are so common priests are more likely to recommend an annulment when a couple comes in for marriage counseling.

And the other arguments have to do with the statistics of divorce. With increased annulments you get increased remarriage in the Catholic church. Second marriages have a lower chance of success than first marriages. And the kids from broken families are more likely to get divorced.

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[HisChildForever]

I believe that the following cause divorce:

- Living together before marriage
- Premarital sex
- Not understanding the sacredness of marriage/not understanding marriage as a Sacrament
- Seeing divorce as an option before you enter into a marriage
- Contraception (before and/or during the marriage)
- Abortion (married couples DO have abortions)
- Selfishness

[tinytherese]

When it comes to looking at the validity of a marriage, canon law lawyers look at two main things...

full knowledge (including whether or not they understood what marriage really is)

full consent (For example, if a couple got married just because the woman was pregnant.)

I'm sure there are times when annulments are given out when they shouldn't have been granted, but in today's world it seems as if a lot of annulments can be justified. CatherineM has done work in the tribunal. She would be just the right phatmasser to discuss this topic.

[CatherineM]

First off, you have to have a divorce before you can file for an annulment. I have never heard of a priest ever recommending a couple get a divorce or an annulment. I have seen some recommend separating when physical abuse or substance abuse were present.

As to the annulments being granted, HCF hits it when it comes to what I saw in the tribunal. Basically, I saw a lot of immature people who didn't know what marriage really meant, or didn't care.

[Nihil Obstat]

Do people ever lie to the tribunal in order to get their annulment approved?

[aalpha1989]

What HCF and CatherineM have said may be true, but I'm willing to bet that the increase in annulments has deceived couples about the Church's true position. In my experience (all 20 years, I know,) there have been tons of annulments which were admittedly granted when they shouldn't have been. The couples choose to believe that because the "Church" has said it is ok, they have successfully avoided any concurrence of guilt.
Annulments aren't just seen as Catholic divorce, they're used as Catholic divorce.

I have also heard of many cases in which annulments were denied, and I am proud of canon lawyers and bishops who stand up for what is right (whether it is to grant or to deny annulments)... we need more of them.

Also, I don't fault any truly devout Catholics who have obtained annulments. I have just witnessed way too many abuses.

[aalpha1989]

[quote name='Nihil Obstat' date='17 January 2010 - 05:15 PM' timestamp='1263766524' post='2039278']
Do people ever lie to the tribunal in order to get their annulment approved?
[/quote]

Yes.

[Resurrexi]

[quote name='CatherineM' date='17 January 2010 - 05:07 PM' timestamp='1263766048' post='2039272']
First off, you have to have a divorce before you can file for an annulment. I have never heard of a priest ever recommending a couple get a divorce or an annulment. I have seen some recommend separating when physical abuse or substance abuse were present.

As to the annulments being granted, HCF hits it when it comes to what I saw in the tribunal. Basically, I saw a lot of immature people who didn't know what marriage really meant, or didn't care.
[/quote]

Please explain why one obtain a civil divorce before applying for an annulment and where that rule is laid down.

[organwerke]

Well, I think that it is true the contrary: that increasing divorce increase annulments rate.
(that it is maybe the same thing!)

Then, I don't agree that kids from broken families are more likely to get divorced. (I know several cases that demonstrates this, and I also think that it would be wrong to "brand" kids from broken marriages with this belief.

[Nihil Obstat]

[quote name='organwerke' date='17 January 2010 - 04:45 PM' timestamp='1263768353' post='2039313']
Well, I think that it is true the contrary: that increasing divorce increase annulments rate.
(that it is maybe the same thing!)

Then, I don't agree that kids from broken families are more likely to get divorced. (I know several cases that demonstrates this, and I also think that it would be wrong to "brand" kids from broken marriages with this belief.
[/quote]
Well statistically I think it is more likely. Also puts the children at greater risk of delinquency, etc.. Not that we should judge them just because their parents are divorced, but statistically it's definitely significant.

[CatherineM]

[quote name='Resurrexi' date='17 January 2010 - 04:27 PM' timestamp='1263767259' post='2039299']
Please explain why one obtain a civil divorce before applying for an annulment and where that rule is laid down.
[/quote]
Every level of the judicial system, be it civil, criminal, appeals, or in this case, canonical, have what are call local rules. As an example, during my first year of law school, the Oklahoma Supreme Court put out a rule that all briefs presented before the court had to be 10 pages or less. Limiting a lawyer's long-windedness caused all sorts of debate and dissension.

Local rules are not codified laws in the way you are thinking. It's the kind of thing you don't learn out of a book, but only from living in the real world and dealing with judges and court clerks and occasionally from getting yelled at in open court (there are judges with bizarre dress codes such as no white shoes or no red ties).

In the US and Canada, canonical courts require a divorce certificate with the initial filing. It would not be required in a jurisdiction such as the Philippines where there is no civil divorce. If you don't believe me, call your local tribunal tomorrow, and ask them if they take filings for annulment without divorce certificates.

I think it is simply prudent. If someone hasn't gone through civil divorce first, you would wonder if they were committed to the annulment process. Plus think of the mess that could happen if someone received an annulment, but not a divorce wanting to get married in the church, but not civilly.

[Norseman82]

How is it that in times past (my parents' and grandparents' generations) people did not have the 6-12 parish month notification requirement to get married (the old Baltimore Catechism specified 3 weeks, presumably to get the banns published), pre-Cana counseling (that I am aware of), Theology of the Body study groups, etc., yet the divorce rate was nowhere close to the 50% it is today? My grandparents were married alomst 58 years (ending only due to my grandfather's death) and neither my parents nor my uncles or aunts divorced.

Edited January 17, 2010 by Norseman82

[CatherineM]

When your grandparents got married, our society wasn't built around throw away things. We repaired radios and TV's. Anyone remember going to the grocery store for a tube to replace in a TV with a burned out one. It was like changing a light bulb. Toasters and coffee pots lasted forever. Now it is cheaper to throw away and buy new.

People entered marriage knowing that divorce was not an option. The only people who got divorced back then were ones married to people who were drunks or disappeared. Then they were pretty much ostracized by friends and family. Today, friends will throw you divorce parties almost like a coming out party that you are back on the market.

It doesn't help that we are all looking for Mr. Right or the perfect woman. 50+ years ago, a marriage was between two people who didn't expect everything to be perfect.

[Resurrexi]

[quote name='Resurrexi' date='17 January 2010 - 05:27 PM' timestamp='1263767259' post='2039299']
Please explain why one must obtain a civil divorce before applying for an annulment and where that rule is laid down.
[/quote]

Fixed.

[Happy_Catholic]

[quote name='HisChildForever' date='17 January 2010 - 04:20 PM' timestamp='1263763248' post='2039248']
I believe that the following cause divorce:

- Living together before marriage
- Premarital sex
- Not understanding the sacredness of marriage/not understanding marriage as a Sacrament
- Seeing divorce as an option before you enter into a marriage
- Contraception (before and/or during the marriage)
- Abortion (married couples DO have abortions)
- Selfishness
[/quote]

Agree!

I'll have to go find it, but I read somewhere once that the average divorce rate is about 50%. We all know that, right? Well, what I was reading went onto say that divorce rates between people who were virgins when they were wed is like <1%!!

But I find the concept of Annulments rather interesting if not a little unfair. My dad went and had himself an affair with a woman who looks like the crypt keeper. (seriously). After years of screwing my mum around she got a divorce so she could move on with her life. Now, she's spoken to priests because it appears my dad was always a bit of a "womaniser" and even his then best man at the wedding told my mum he thought at the time my dad was a bit sleezy. So, if my mum gets an annulment, he'll get one by default.

Now, you'd think such a chap wouldn't bother with canon law seeing as he's an adulter (his mistress is still married), however, he and crypt keeper went to a priest in Aussie who's apparenty been officially labelled a heretic and were told by said heretic that they were NOT living in sin and adultery is a-okay.

However, I have heard that my dad and his crypt keeper lady attend Catholci services out of the district where people don't know who they are - including they take communion, and when they're in the their home town, they go to a liberal Protestant church!

Edited January 18, 2010 by Happy_Catholic

[southern california guy]

Okay, I'll try to tackle this. And I'll start by saying that I totally agree with "HisChildForever" on this. Excellent points!


Here's an example that I think argues that annulments encourage divorce. It's from the greenspun.com Catholic forum. (http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=00B3EI)

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[font="Arial"] I disagree with the two authors above.

In the United States, Catholics used to abhor divorce and avoid it if at all possible, even living separate lives but still honoring the marriage vow to some extent depending on the individuals involved. The slim to zero possibilty of getting an annulment actually inhibited people from seeking divorce.

Thats simply not the case now as annulments are relatively easy to come by, given enough time, and if the case is structured the right way and filed with the right tribunal. As John Paul II has stated in his 2003 address to the Sacred Roman Rota, people filing for annulments, by and large, have lost sight of the sacramental nature of marriage.

I don't have any idea how the person above (John Placette) can make the blanket statement that increased annulment rate has no effect on the divorce rate. There is no factual or intuitive basis for that assertion.

In my case, I can assure you that my divorce was directly caused by the increased availability of annulments. It was in the forefront of my wife's reasoning for leaving the marriage, and she comes from a family where annulments are quite common. The sad truth was that in my case, there was zero effort to to save the marriage. I have since found out that the reasoning my wife followed was that "the marriage does not exist, therefore we cannot be wasteful in expending effort to save it."

So intuitively, and empirically, I assert that in the United States, the annulment rate does affect and has increased the divorce rate among Catholics.

Pat

-- Pat Delaney (PatrickRDelaney@yahoo.com), July 14, 2003. [/font]

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He argues that people -- whose parents got an "annulment" -- are likely to divorce. He's not implying that there was a problem at the time they got married. He's implying that they had problems later down the road in the marriage. And he argues that his wife made no effort to save the marriage. The argument that the marriage never existed allowed her to divorce him with a clear conscience -- never considering that she was breaking vows or doing anything wrong. It was too easy of an excuse. And because of her upbringing marriage didn't mean as much to her as it did to him. According to my mom NOBODY ever really has full knowledge of what a marriage is -- until they get married and experience it.

Children who's parents got divorced are also more likely to divorce or not marry at all according to Wolfinger ( http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m4021/is_ISSN_0163-4089/ai_57483843/ ). He writes that in the 70's kids from divorced families were 2.5 times more likely to get divorced themselves. In 1996 he found that the kids from divorced families were still more likely to divorce (1.4 times) but that fewer kids from divorced families were marrying at all.

People get annulments so that they can remarry in the Catholic church. But the statistics on second and third marriages are not very good.

"According to enrichment journal on the divorce rate in America: ( http://www.divorcerate.org/ )

The divorce rate in America for first marriage is 41%
The divorce rate in America for second marriage is 60%
The divorce rate in America for third marriage is 73%"

So this would imply that the Catholic church is inviting divorce by remarrying Catholics. The kids from the second marriages -- that divorced -- would also be more likely to divorce, so a vicious cycle is created.

Since the institution of marriage (Which include vows and commitments) is really about providing a stable relationship to raise kids in (The Family). Divorce isn't so bad if there were no kids in the first marriage. But I'm guessing that these people would be more likely to get a divorce in their second marriage.

I'm guessing that kids whose parents got divorced, got annulments, and remarried are also more likely them to follow the same pattern themselves. Therefore increasing annulments -- also increases divorce. And the statistics in the Catholic church seem to bear that out.

"In all of these cases, the reason must be grave and the evidence that there never was a valid
marriage must be clear. That’s why only 338 annulments were granted in 1968 in the U.S.,
when the pre-Vatican II teaching on marriage was still held by most.

However, with the explosion of the post-Vatican II apostasy, the teaching of the indissolubility of
marriage has been thrown out the window along with the other dogmas. From 1984 to 1994, the
Vatican II Church in the U.S. granted just under 59,000 annually, even though the number of
Catholic marriages has fallen one third since 1965!"
( http://www.mostholyfamilymonastery.com/28_Annulments.pdf )

"Perhaps as few as 10 percent of divorced Catholics even bother to seek an annulment."
(http://74.125.155.132/search?q=cache:Y1h2GNKsAIIJ:findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1141/is_5_39/ai_94873028/+percent+marriages+annulled+1968&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)

So we must have something like 600,000 Catholic divorces annually in the US.


Are we seeing the impacts of a whole generation of Catholics from broken homes in the US Catholic church today?

Edited January 18, 2010 by southern california guy

[CatherineM]

My parents were both divorced. In fact, they weren't married to each other until my mom needed the paperwork in order to file for Social Security. My mother's first marriage was annulled, my father's wasn't. Not because it was turned down, he had automatic grounds, but because he refused to file. He didn't believe in it. I was raised by my mom and dad, so it's not like I came from a broken home. I don't believe in divorce which seems strange to say since I filed many divorces in my legal career. My husband and I agreed from the beginning that divorce would never be an option. That means we actually have to work things out. Besides, he'd be scared to face me in court.

[Jaime]

State your evidence that annulments are on the rise. there may be a rise in the rate of requests, but I have a feeling the number of annulments has been dropping.

[zunshynn]

[quote name='aalpha1989' date='17 January 2010 - 03:21 PM' timestamp='1263766881' post='2039286']
What HCF and CatherineM have said may be true, but I'm willing to bet that the increase in annulments has deceived couples about the Church's true position. In my experience (all 20 years, I know,) [u]there have been tons of annulments which were admittedly granted when they shouldn't have been.[/u] The couples choose to believe that because the "Church" has said it is ok, they have successfully avoided any concurrence of guilt.
Annulments aren't just seen as Catholic divorce, they're used as Catholic divorce.[/quote]

Prove that. I'm not saying that people have not manipulated the system, but if an annulment has been granted, it's not your place to judge whether or not it is legitimate.

[Norseman82]

[quote name='CatherineM' date='17 January 2010 - 07:21 PM' timestamp='1263774073' post='2039349']
When your grandparents got married, our society wasn't built around throw away things. We repaired radios and TV's. Anyone remember going to the grocery store for a tube to replace in a TV with a burned out one. It was like changing a light bulb. Toasters and coffee pots lasted forever. Now it is cheaper to throw away and buy new.

People entered marriage knowing that divorce was not an option. The only people who got divorced back then were ones married to people who were drunks or disappeared. Then they were pretty much ostracized by friends and family. Today, friends will throw you divorce parties almost like a coming out party that you are back on the market.

It doesn't help that we are all looking for Mr. Right or the perfect woman. 50+ years ago, a marriage was between two people who didn't expect everything to be perfect.
[/quote]

When my grandparents got married, I don't even know if there were radios and TVs!!!

Anyway, I don't know if what has changed was the maturity level as much as the fact that we now have no-fault divorce.

Another thing: the old Baltimore Catechism listed the six precepts of the Church, one of them being to obey the Church's marriage laws. In fact, there was an explicit statement in the old Baltimore Catechism regarding Catholics who married before protestant ministers instead of Catholic priests that such marriages incurred excommunication and Catholics were not to attend or [b]even give gifts[/b] in those cases. Now, when I read the new CCC promulgated in the 1990s, I do not even see the precept "obey the marriage laws of the Church" listed?