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Archbishop Burke Could Play a Hand in U.S. Marriage Annulment Crackdown...

"The Eternal Father has given mankind a set of rules, and in discipline they must be obeyed. It behooves Me to say that My heart is torn by the actions, the despicable actions, of My clergy. I unite, as your God, man and woman into the holy state of matrimony. And what I have bound together no man must place asunder. And what do I see but broken homes, marriages dissolved through annulments! It has scandalized your nation, and it is scandalizing the world. Woe to the teachers and leaders who scandalize the sheep!" - Jesus, May 3, 1978

Mary Beth Erickson's husband was not in court during their divorce proceedings in 1990. There was no testimony. She didn't get to give her side of the story.   As a result, after the divorce was final, she felt unsatisfied. Added to the pain of the separation was the feeling that something had been left unsaid.  Erickson wasn't interested in remarrying yet, but she sought an annulment from the Roman Catholic church anyway.

In court, "I didn't have a chance to say what happened," Erickson said. "The annulment offered me a way to do that and get past it. It was a form of healing."  Erickson, a parish-center administrator at St. Francis Xavier (College) Church in St. Louis, found that healing to be so profound that she now volunteers as one of 250 advocates whom the archdiocese has trained to guide Catholics seeking annulments through the yearlong process.  "They're sharing information that was so intimate in their lives with people they've never met with, and that's really scary," Erickson said. "You're saying stuff you've never said to anyone." 

American Catholics are seeking annulments — the church's declaration that a marriage was invalid — in large numbers. Whether, like Erickson, they're hoping it helps them heal after a divorce, or allows them to get remarried in the church, annulments are in demand, and the church in the United States is granting them.  The St. Louis Archdiocese granted nine out of 10 requests for an annulment last year. American Catholics make up about 6 percent of the global church, but according to the most recent Vatican statistics available, the church in the United States granted 60 percent of the world's annulments in 2006. 

Pope Benedict XVI has indicated that he believes that's too many, and some Vatican watchers say the church may decrease the number of annulments granted to divorced Catholics.  In a speech in January to the Roman Rota, the Vatican's highest appellate court, Pope Benedict XVI reiterated the church's teaching on invalidating Catholic marriages, emphasizing the need to balance "justice" and "charity." He also cautioned church tribunals against allowing the growing civil divorce rate to dictate the number of annulments — called decrees of nullity, in church parlance — they grant.

Even after a Catholic couple gets a divorce, the church still considers the marriage valid. An annulment is a tribunal's declaration that a marriage was never valid to begin with, that there was a hidden impediment or "defect of consent" that kept the marriage from being legitimate.   That declaration comes only after a long and involved investigation that asks people to examine, in sometimes excruciating detail, the ups and downs of their marriage. The tribunal may conduct interviews with both parties, ask for details from friends and family members, search for documentary evidence of marital wrongdoing and order psychiatric evaluations.

Most Catholics who seek an annulment do so in order to remarry in the church. Divorced Catholics without an annulment who remarry outside the church are barred from receiving Holy Communion because the church considers that marriage irregular. In his January speech, Benedict argued that the desire to be both remarried and able to receive the Eucharist should not come at the cost of the sacrament of marriage.  "Both justice and charity require love for truth, and essentially involve the search for what is true," Benedict said. "Without truth, charity slides into sentimentalism. Love becomes an empty shell to be filled arbitrarily. This is the fatal risk of love in a culture without truth."

Monsignor John Shamleffer, who heads the St. Louis Archdiocese's tribunal, said Benedict was "reminding tribunals not to fall prey to the direction of society."  The United States leads the world in divorces, according to the U.S. census, which partially explains why the Catholic church here leads the world in annulments.  "You can't just (grant annulments) because you know that's what people want," Shamleffer explained. "That decision has to be based on real understanding." 

A PASTORAL TOOL

The pope's speech went to the heart of a pastoral challenge for church leaders presented with faithful Catholics in unhappy marriages: how to allow an individual Catholic another chance at marriage in the church (charity), while upholding the church's belief in the permanence of marriage (justice).  The speech may have also served as a subtle warning to the world's tribunals, especially those in the United States, that change could be coming.  

Every Catholic diocese has a tribunal, and most of its members' time is spent investigating troubled marriages. Each tribunal reports its annulment numbers annually to the Apostolic Signatura, often called the Vatican's supreme court, now headed by former St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke.  If Benedict wanted the church to scale back the number of annulments it grants, for instance, that message could be sent around the Catholic world through Burke's office.

"It certainly could," said the Rev. John Beal, a professor of canon law at Catholic University of America in Washington. "By making it clear that in the review process, certain things are going beyond the bounds of law and have to stop."  Bishop Frans Daneels, secretary of the Apostolic Signatura, said Burke was not available for an interview.  Canon lawyers also point out that the tribunal system in the United States actually works as it's supposed to and that American bishops pour a lot of resources into marriage cases in the hopes of helping their flocks.  "We have more people working for the tribunal here in Washington than are working for the tribunal system for the entire country of El Salvador," Beal said. "There are just places around the world where the tribunal system is moribund."

The vast majority of a tribunal's work is investigating the validity of marriages. In 2009, about 350 people petitioned the St. Louis Archdiocese's tribunal for an annulment, Shamleffer said. About 250 of those were granted, while the 100 others were either still being investigated, or were rejected.  Annulments take between eight months and a year, on average, to adjudicate, and cost about $1,500 each. The archdiocese asks that the person seeking the annulment contribute $650; it subsidizes the rest.   According to the Canon Law Society of America, St. Louis Catholics spent $473,000 on annulments in 2008. The archdiocese contributed 68 percent of that total, or $324,000. By comparison, the Belleville diocese paid for $52,000 of the $70,000 spent on annulments there in 2008, or 74 percent. 

'REALITY OF DIVORCE'

Some divorced Catholics feel the church shuns them. A group called Arise: St. Louis Divorced and Widowed Catholics numbers nearly 400 people and has support groups in five counties around the archdiocese.   Leo Schellert, 65, a retired machinist, is a Eucharistic minister at St. Cletus Catholic Church in St. Charles. Schellert says that he has received two annulments — in 1985, and again in 2004 — and that the process was "pretty good" both times.  But Schellert, who is a leader in the 30-year-old Arise group, said the church "tries to force an annulment down people's throats too quick, while people are still dealing with the grief process."

Shamleffer, the head of the St. Louis Archdiocese's tribunal, said the church was realistic about divorce. "The church upholds and trusts greatly in the dignity of marriage," he said, "but what happens sometimes is the reality of divorce."  Annulment investigations are often brutal, entailing a painful retelling of the story of a failed marriage and demanding advocates who are combinations of legal guides and shoulders to cry on.  "That's part of our ministry too," said Erickson. "You're giving people a chance to say what happened, and then move on."

Also, a recent news article stated:

The Pope is set to dramatically toughen the Church’s stance on marriage annulments by rejecting outright plans for a ‘fast track’ process.

     Presently, two tribunals must agree before an annulment is granted, but a radical proposal by a commission headed by Church Chief Justice Cardinal Mario Pompedda envisages dispensing with the need for the second verdict, thereby speeding up the process markedly.

     However, sources in Rome report that the pontiff has this week placed his firm backing behind the present system in a move clearly calculated to protect the Sacrament of Marriage.

     The move comes against the background of new statistics published this week which show an ever growing number of requests for annulments over the past 20 years. 

Veronica - Jesus wants you to know that many marriages are not approved of by Heaven. The example within the homes have led many children onto the road to hell. There will be no rationalization of adultery, there will be no rationalization of the breaking up of the home in divorce. Marriages, consummated and blessed by God the Father, shall not be dissolved by the whims of man.
    Know ye now that satan rules throughout your world for a short time. He has the power to turn the husband against his spouse, and the wife against her husband. Know you now that you cannot escape the fires of hell if you dissolve a marriage blessed by God the Father. It is permanent, and in the eyes of God, permanent unto death. - October 2, 1973

Our Lady of the Roses awesome Bayside Prophecies... https://www.tldm.org/../Bayside/  These prophecies came from Jesus, Mary, and the saints to Veronica Lueken at Bayside, NY, from 1968 to 1995.

JOINED
"The act of marriage blessed by the Father must not be dissolved to suit mankind in his carnal nature and loss of the knowledge of God. What God has joined together no man shall place asunder." - Our Lady, December 28, 1974

DESPICABLE
"The Eternal Father has given mankind a set of rules, and in discipline they must be obeyed. It behooves Me to say that My heart is torn by the actions, the despicable actions, of My clergy. I unite, as your God, man and woman into the holy state of matrimony. And what I have bound together no man must place asunder. And what do I see but broken homes, marriages dissolved through annulments! It has scandalized your nation, and it is scandalizing the world. Woe to the teachers and leaders who scandalize the sheep!" - Jesus, May 3, 1978

PROPAGATION
"The act of the union of the flesh was created as the means for the propagation of life upon your earth. We have seen the defaming of this sacred ritual of your God. You fornicate like animals, and when you sin you will not stand up and accept the fruits of your vulgarity. 
    "The union of the flesh will produce as the Father has deemed it. Should you use this in any manner contrary to the laws of your God, you shall reap what you have sown." - Our Lady, May 10, 1972

HUMANAE VITAE*
"The encyclical of Pope Paul on birth control is true and must be followed by mankind. There shall be no rationalization of sin. There shall be no excuse for the murder of the unborn. Sin has become a way of life among mankind, but Heaven does not condone murder. Heaven cannot condone sin, though the Eternal Father in His mercy is most merciful and long suffering and forgiving." - Our Lady, October 2, 1976

*The encyclical letter, Humanae Vitae [Of Human Life] by Pope Paul VI, principally forbidding the use of artificial contraceptives in the regulation of births, under pain of mortal sin. It was issued in 1968 amidst great controversy generated by dissident theologians and others, who clamored for a reversal of this timeless doctrine. This godless pursuit was dealt a heavy glow when our Holy Father, speaking as the supreme teacher of the Church, gently but firmly articulated the constant teaching of the Church. We recommend that you read and study this momentous encyclical letter, Humanae Vitae.

STRENGTH
"The strength for souls will be found in the family circle." - Our Lady, December 31, 1972

ANNULMENTS
"Families are disintegrating. I must tell you now, My children, the family must be returned to the holy state it was constructed for. We shall never approve nor accept marriage and cohabitation without marriage. We shall not accept the annulments that are being given now to so many without due cause." - Our Lady, September 27, 1986

"In 1968 there were 450 Catholic marriage annulments in the U.S., but 48,000 in 1981!" (Msgr. Joseph Cirrincione and Thomas A. Nelson, The Rosary and the Crisis of Faith, Rockford, Ill., Tan Books and Publishers, Inc., 1986).

"More than 61,400 U.S. Catholics were granted annulments in 1989...." (The Brooklyn Tablet, Brooklyn, N.Y., March 28, 1992, p. 5).

COMMON-LAW
"O My child and My children, never have We seen from the beginning of time a world in such chaos. And also, I shall not speak with words that affright your heart, my child, but I wish it known that this new modern role of what they call 'marriage without marriage'-which means living as 'common-law,' I understand--My children shall not be tolerated in Heaven. It was never the plan of the Eternal Father that man and woman shall live as animals.
    "Fornication shall never be accepted. There is no excuse for fornication. If you cannot remain celibate, better then that you must then be married. It is better, My child and My children, to be married than to burn in hell. 
    "I also ask that all of My children of the world review the Ten Commandments." - Our Lady, November 1, 1985

BLACK CLOUD
"My children, when My Son returns upon your earth, will He find even a flicker of faith left in the hearts of mankind? In the days of Sodom, so too were men giving themselves over to all the pleasures of the flesh: eating, drinking, marrying, giving in marriage. All manner of sinful lusts were being committed. Men shameful with men, women casting aside their role of motherhood and lusting after women. As it was in the days of Sodom, so now is this black cloud over America." - Our Lady, July 14, 1979

SACREDNESS
"The sacredness of marriage and the married life of man and woman must not be destroyed by debased sensuality. It is a private consummation between man and woman and the family. It is not an object of derisive laughter and scornful jokes, My children. 
    "Your actions are observed by the Eternal Father Who looks into your heart. Pure thoughts, pure mind, pure spirit--what goes into the heart will come out." - Our Lady, August 21, 1975

Directives from Heaven... https://www.tldm.org/directives/directives.htm

D15 - Holy Matrimony PDF
D223 - Adultery & divorce   PDF

Articles...

Pope tells bishops to make known full teaching of Church on defense of marriage
https://www.tldm.org/News7/marriage1.htm

Cohabitation and divorce
https://www.tldm.org/news2/divorce.htm

Pope says family "under attack" in modern society
https://www.tldm.org/news4/family.htm

Vatican says annulment reform needed
https://www.tldm.org/News7/annulments2.htm

Abortion: the ultimate exploitation of women
https://www.tldm.org/news6/exploitation.htm

Abortion and the contraceptive mentality
https://www.tldm.org/news4/contraception_abortion.htm

Pope Paul VI was prophetic
https://www.tldm.org/news4/contraception.htm

Contraception is intrinsically evil
https://www.tldm.org/news6/contraception.htm