Slow Annulment

New code delays U.S. system

The Roman Catholic Church hardly ever recognizes a divorce, or a second marriage while the original spouse is living. But those who wish to remarry and remain Catholics in good standing may seek an annulment, in which the church rules that a valid marriage never existed in the first place. Once a rarity, annulments in the U.S. have grown from a mere 338 in 1968 to around 32,000 last year. In the Vatican last week the International Canon Law Commission sent to Pope John Paul for approval the final draft of a new code that would slow down U.S. annulment procedure, but streamline things in much of the world.

There are two factors in annulment, grounds and procedure. The grounds in the existing canon law code of 1917 are generally technical: bigamy, fraud, insanity, coercion and the like. But over the past two decades church tribunals have expanded psychological incapacity as a basis. The proposed new code recognizes this principle, known as "serious lack of due discretion."

On procedure, the U.S. operates under a temporary dispensation called an indult. The indult was granted by Pope Paul VI in 1969 as an experiment, because the American hierarchy requested help on its huge backlog of cases. (Canada got a less sweeping indult in 1974; Belgium, England and Scotland had indults which have now expired.)

Under the U.S. indult, which will remain in force until the new code goes into effect, perhaps by 1983, annulments are handled by a local church tribunal. When an annulment is approved, the American hierarchy assigns a bishop to accept or reject it. Almost all local verdicts are approved. But other nations are required to hold a time-consuming second trial, after which couples may appeal to the Vatican. The new proposal calls for a regional panel to review all the testimony after a local tribunal has endorsed an annulment, but not a second trial.

American bishops lobbied strenuously to keep their privilege in the new code. An American member of the canon law commission, Archbishop Joseph L. Bernardin of Cincinnati and his canon law adviser, Monsignor John A. Alesandro of Garden City, N.Y., say that the boom in U.S. annulments is the result of social factors. They cite the high number of divorces and the high number of mixed marriages in American society. U.S. annulments now will drag out somewhat, agrees Bernardin, but he says, "We feel this is something we can work with." To which Alesandro adds, "We're not handing out annulments like-lollipops. On the whole, I think our jurisprudence is pretty solid."

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