VATICAN CITY (RNS) Pope Benedict XVI on Friday (Jan. 29) urged church judges to limit the number of marriage annulments they grant by encouraging couples to stay together if possible.
Benedict made his remarks to members of the Roman Rota, the church panel with the highest authority in marriage cases, at a ceremony marking the start of the judicial year.
The pope told the judges that if they “glimpse hope” of a positive reconciliation, they should “induce the spouses to affirm if possible their marriage and reestablish their conjugal cohabitation.”
“One must shun pseudo-pastoral claims that place the matter on a merely horizontal plane, where all that matters is satisfying subjective requests to obtain (an annulment) at all costs,” Benedict said. “In the church, the aim of judicial activity is the salvation of souls.”
Under canon law, a marriage can be declared null and void for a variety of reasons, including impotence, a previous marriage, or a lack of psychological maturity at the time of the union. A Catholic who divorces and remarries must obtain an annulment of the first marriage in order to continue receiving Communion.
Most decisions on annulments are made at the diocesan level, and degrees of strictness vary.
In 2002, according to a study by the Italian Catholic magazine “30 Giorni,” church courts in Europe granted annulments in 85 percent of cases, compared with 97 percent in the United States. The U.S. generated 57 percent of the requests for annulments that year, despite having only 6 percent of the world’s Catholic population.
