Last week, I asked a question about the "Internal Forum alternative" to annumlments which one site was touting. I since found out that this "option" was rejected by the Vatican at least a decade ago. In addition to this info, Pete Vere wieghs in with the following.

Okay, internal forum, as you know, is the forum of conscience. It usually means the confessional, as opposed to the external forum (the external forum including the diocesan tribunal). Say Joe and ABC are college sweethearts. They marry fresh out of college and have four kids. Twenty years later, Joe goes through a mid-life crisis and runs off with his much younger secretary XYZ. Assume all parties were baptized Catholic as infants.

Ten years' later, Joe and XYZ now want to regularize their situation with the Church, which involves resolving Joe prior's marriage to ABC. However, the circumstances strongly point to Joe and ABC having entered into a valid marriage that simply broke down when Joe had his midlife crisis. So the tribunal rules in the negative, that is to say the marriage was not proven invalid with moral certitude. It is also unlikely the marriage between Joe and ABC will ever be proven invalid.

Joe and XYZ are sincerely repentant, but cannot really break up because Joe is of advanced years now, and requires XYZ's care and companionship, or Joe and XYZ have subsequently had two children of their own, and breaking them up would cause a grave evil among the children who are innocent parties and require both parents, or some other suitable excuse.

In this instance, the Church recognizes an internal forum solution. There are two broad definitions of this, the first recognized by the Church and the second condemned by the Church but practiced by a number of liberal or poorly informed priests. In the second case, the priest takes the couple aside in the confessional, asks them if they feel their marriage is valid, and bids them to continue living as husband and wife in peace. This is an abuse and the CDF has rightly jumped all over it.

Now for the legitimate internal forum solution, the priest would hear each individual's confession, then quietly invite them together into the confessional, exact a promise from them to live as brother and sister, and if they are well-known in the parish, ask them to quietly start attending another parish where they are not as well known. Then he would bid them farewell and they could resume the practice of the sacraments.

Thanks Pete.