One of our non-Catholic visitors wrote this comment on a post below, when the comments drifted off to the topic of annulment:

So...is an annulment kind of like an absolution, then?

A tidy question. I'll answer it, but I wonder if our tribunal contributor would step in and take this darn thing away from me.

An annulment is NOT an absolution. It is instead a recognition of the fact that when the parties swore a sacramental vow to be married to one another forever, one (or both) of them was incapable of making such a vow (internal defect), or that the marriage ceremony itself denied the sacramental nature of marriage (an external defect). It does not make children illegitimate and does not replace civil divorce. To a Catholic, marriage should have two parts, civil/legal and sacramental, and the Church doesn't meddle with the civil part. The Catholic Church also recognizes as sacramental marriages performed in other Christian churches, so if a Catholic marries a divorced Protestant, the Protestant may have to discern whether they had a valid prior marriage.

The external defect is pretty identifiable; don't enter into marriage stone drunk, with a pagan, in front of an Elvis impersonator. An internal defect on the other hand must be discovered in the marriage itself, by reason of mental instability, extreme immaturity, outside pressure by parents, etc. The defect is discovered through a series of testimonies given by the parties and witnesses and production of other evidence. I just received an annulment. I stated (and my ex surprisingly concurred) that my ex-husband concealed his diagnosed mental illness from me (I found out, after we were separated, through outside sources) that, since he refuses treatment, effectively destroys his ability to make any permanent promises, or understand the gravity of the Sacrament.

Doing the voluminous paperwork was, for me, a healing and cleansing experience, although I know people, with very bitter divorces and who haven't forgiven their exes yet, who find it an occasion to spew out more anger. (You can see the actual questions asked in the paperwork in the archived entries on this blog.)

All of the paperwork goes to the local diocesan marriage tribunal, and a judge and a defender of the bond, in some process I don't know a lot about, duke it out and determine whether a marriage existed.

In my case, they determined that although I was married civilly, I was not married sacramentally. I am absolutely grateful to have it available to me, if I marry again. I myself will be far more aware of the grace and the gravity of the Sacrament.