Can someone explain to me why the Catholic church takes money to "annul" people?

Question

i understand that people need to make a living but I ran into an ex-Catholic who said his parents were married for 14 years with kids and they had to give a bunch of money to get the marriage annuled, then the Catholic church said the marriage never existed, even though they were married in a Catholic church? Do they use these stats in saying that more Catholics stay married, because they annul them and it "doesnt count".

Answer 1

the pope needs to eat to

Answer 2

I'm not sure about the money aspect but I understand what annulments mean.

If a catholic married couple is splitting, they must seek an annulment from the Catholic Church. What happens is the Church begins an investigative process to determine if the marriage sacrament was valid at the time they first married. There are various methods and conditions they use to determine this. If it is found that no sacrament existed, then the Church grants a declaration of nullity (annulment), and the two are either free to correctly marry at that point or go their separate ways. This is what they mean by the marriage never existing and not counting.

However, if it IS found that the sacrament IS valid, then the two are considered married and nothing can be done. This is because marriage is a sacramental covenant bound together by God. The Church holds that no union made by God can be undone by men, which is why valid marriages cannot be dissolved.

Hope this helps. God bless.

Answer 3

Catholic Marraige is binding... that is, once done and properly so there is no force on earth which can unbind. If a couple seperates and remarries their new marraige will be invalid in the eyes of the catholic church (and they will be in a state of adultery as well). An annulment doesn't declare that a valid marraige "doesn't count." nor does it undo a marraige at all.

An annulment is a process by which couples who suspect that for some reason or another their marraige was INVALIDLY completed (priest never pronounced them man and wife) or made under false pretenses (wife used to be a man but didn't tell the husband until AFTER the wedding) can submit their case to the church for review. The church then does a background check and traces documents and people (along with interviewing the husband and wife) to determine if a grave error was made in the process of the sacrament. This would mean that a valid marraige had never taken place, so while the marraige was putitive and any children from it considered legitimate, it was never a valid marraige.

The cost of filing for an annulment review goes to church lawyers who trace documents, review statements by the husband and wife, and review church law to determine if a sacrament of invalid form took place. This process takes awhile (months and sometimes even years) and isn't exactly cheap to do.

Answer 4

+ Declarations of Nullity +

The Catholic Church believes that God does not recognize civil divorces.

Jesus said, "Therefore what God has joined together, no human being must separate." (Mark 10:9)

However there may be hope of a declaration of nullity.

The term "annulment" is a misnomer because the Church does not undo or erase a marriage bond.

Rather the Church issues a declaration of nullity when it discovers that the parties were not truly joined by God and hence a full spiritual sacramental marriage as understood by the Church was not present.

Then the parties are free to marry for the first time.

+ Cost +

About the cost of nullity, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles states:

A Petitioner is responsible for only a portion of the costs of a case. The faithful of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles substantially subsidize the operation of the Tribunal through their parish contributions. For efficiency, the office must be staffed with trained and qualified priests, canon lawyers, support staff and equipment, all of which is costly.

For a formal trial of invalidity, a Petitioner is asked to pay $500.00, which is payable as follows: a non-refundable filing fee of $100.00, and the balance of $400.00, in installments if necessary, upon final notice of an affirmative decision. The outcome of a case is not contingent upon a Petitioner's ability to pay the fee. If there is financial difficulty, a Petitioner should make this known to the Tribunal.

Let the tribunal know that you cannot pay the fee and they whould be able to make arrangements that are ameniable to everyone involved.

http://www.archdiocese.la/prayer/sacraments/tribunal/faq.html#13

+ With love in Christ.

Answer 5

The Church doesn't "annul" people or marriages. If a person seeks a decree of nullity for their marriage, all the Church does is investigate the situation to see if the marriage is sacramentally valid or not. If it's valid, no decree of nullity is possible. If it's not valid, a decree is issued.

The money pays for the paperwork, investigative phone calls, etc.

The couple you speak of DID have a marriage, a legal marriage. For some reason, they did not have a sacramental marriage. The marriage was legally valid and the kids are legitimate, etc., but the marriage did not meet one of the standards for a sacramental marriage in the Catholic Church.

I have no idea how annulments are figured into Catholic marriage statistics, sorry.

Answer 6

like all organizations, be it religious or not, they are a business and need to make money.

Some one in the church put that cash in their pocket.

It is much easier to get a marriage annuled in the US than in other countries. Much of it has to do with culture. The culture in the US is that a marriage can be ended (via divorce) so the Catholic church here is just keeping up. It's a way for them to keep people going to church and paying for chruch services, even after they are no longer married,

Other countries, where the Catholic church has a stronger cultural stronghold, such as Mexico and Ireland, it is much more difficult to get a marriage annuled

Answer 7

For the same reason a lawyer takes money to handle a civil divorce, basically -- and people don't seem to have a problem shelling out the cash for that.

An annulment requires an investigation into the circumstances of the marriage in question, by canon lawyers, to determine if there are valid grounds for annulment. A fee for this is customary; however, no one is ever denied having their petition for annulment heard due to inability to pay.

Answer 8

It's doublethink: believing in two contradictory ideas or points of view at the same time. Since the catholic church is supposedly against divorce, but they know that many of their members will get divorced anyway, they've found a way to pretend that the marriage never existed (thus keeping up the pretense that catholics don't get divorced), and add more money to their coffers.
.

Answer 9

The fees for the anullment are just like any other fee. It cost money to push paperwork. My fee for the anullment I am currently going through will be aroundn 200.00. I think it is a smile price to pay. The process has given me great cause for reflection and I feel it will truly help the marriage I am to enter.

Pam

Answer 10

Anything worth while is worth paying for. As a divorced Catholic I certainly don't agree that the church can say a marriage never existed

Answer 11

I believe that Catholics believe that marriage is a sacrament, meaning that God is present at the marriage and is thus sacred. They are unique in this thought as most Christian denominations do not list marriage as a sacrament (baptism and communion). I think that as a sacrament it is easier for them to believe that the marriage was non-existent as opposed to God making a mistake in uniting these people.