There's been a whole lot of talk recently at Santificarnos on the question of annulments, and there are many posts there worth one's reading. Sometimes one hears, "Well, the American Church grants way too many annulments and has basically turned the whole thing into divorce Catholic-style." In one post, the authors ask what we think about that statement.

I don't agree with it.

First, let's deal with the presuppositions. If we read through the Gospels, we'll find Christ (in a number of places) condemning the practice of divorce and remarriage (which was accepted by Jews, Romans, and Greeks -- basically, everybody) and appealing to the beginnings of marriage itself and its original itent as the foundation for His teaching. This strong teaching of Christ was powerful enough to reshape the entire Western world's understanding of divorce and basically to banish the practice until modern times. For the Christian, marriage really is for keeps, and as long as we care what Jesus teaches, we are powerless to change that.

Marriage is contracted by the exchange of wedding vows between people who are legally capable of making such an exchange. It is the consent itself that makes the marriage.

And, yet, there are things that can go wrong in the exchange of marriage consent. If I make the wedding vows (fidelity, permanence, etc.) with my lips, but I have no intention to stay faithful -- perhaps, at that very moment, I have a mistress set aside somewhere -- what can we say of those vows? Clearly, they are defective. If the consent makes the marriage, but I have withheld full consent, then the marriage itself never really took place. If one of the goods of marriage is an openness to children, but I (or she, or both of us) have made a prior decision not to have children, then I have rendered my vows defective. And if the vows are null, then so is the marriage, even if all the exterior forms are in place. If I swear to be one with my wife "as long as we both shall live," but I have made a prior decision to give the marriage a "trial period" or make an intention to reserve for myself the right to divorce, then my intentions are contrary to the vows, and the vows are invalid.

Sometimes people hide significant things about themselves in order not to be rejected by their intended spouses. If I exchange vows with someone, and one of us is hiding something that might seriously cause the other to call off the wedding or to refuse consent, then the vows are not valid, because they are exchanged under the shadow of deceit. If there is a significant element of fear or constraint that is forcing one of the parties to consent, the vows are invalid because they are not freely entered into. Sometimes persons are so immature that they are incapable of making a decision that will bind their entire lives (insert argument about what level of immaturity is necessary for this); sometimes persons are so affected by psychological issues or substance abuse that they aren't capable of making such a decision (insert same argument again). All of these things are able to invalidate the vows. And if the consent to the vows was invalid, so too was the marriage.

The Church takes marriage vows seriously and presumes every marriage is valid, unless it is proven otherwise. Presuming that a marriage is valid, the Church, basing herself upon the clear teaching of Christ Himself, presumes that the parties to that marriage are not free to re-marry as long as both spouses are alive. The "annulment process" is the Church's juridical mechanism for investigating the validity of the marriage vows. If her courts can demonstrate that the vows were defective, she will declare that the presumed marriage was, in fact, null and invalid. And since it wasn't a marriage, the words of Christ regarding divorce and remarriage don't apply.

Now the question. Consider all the couples you know and the prevalent values in secular culture. If you stopped someone on the street and asked him, "If a couple has completely fallen out of love and is having major difficulties, would it ever be OK for them to cut their losses, get a peaceable divorce, and start over with people whom they really do love?" I think most people would say yes. Add in the modern fear of commitment. Add in the prevalence of infidelity. Add in the frequency of divorce, which sometimes makes permanence seem like an unattainable dream. Add in the bad examples of marriage and parenting that many are using as their only models of how to do it. Then, ask yourself the question, "Is it really the case that the Church is 'annulling' too many marriages in America?" Is it not at least as plausible that there are many, many more invalid marriages out there, and that the Church has only issued declarations of nullity for a small fraction of them?