By Tom Tracy - Florida Catholic
Photographer: CATHOLIC NEWS AGENCY
Vatican City - September 2, 2015. Pope Francis is seen here in St. Peter's Square during the Wednesday general audience on September 2, 2015.
MIAMI | The marriage annulment reforms announced by Pope Francis don’t change the Church's teaching on marriage but should eliminate unnecessary delays in the procedural process in many cases.
On Sept. 8, the Vatican released the texts of two papal documents � one for the Latin-rite Church and another for Eastern Catholic churches � which, among other changes, allow for an expedited marriage annulment process without the obligatory automatic appeal.
Significantly for South Florida Catholics, persons who were married in other nations or regions of the U.S. will now be able to initiate a marriage annulment process here in Miami rather than first going through the diocese in which their wedding took place.
The new changes go into effect Dec. 8, just as the Church begins its Holy Year of Mercy.
Speaking to local TV news outlets this week, Archbishop Thomas G. Wenski said since there are people from many other cities and countries of origin living within the Miami Archdiocese, the new process should eliminate backlogs and unnecessary delays in the process.
And no longer will an annulment case here be automatically sent to another diocese in the region for a “second set of eyes” to review the case �unless one party in the process wishes to appeal the annulment finding.
Archbishop Wenski indicated that the modifications in the process were anticipated and are welcomed. They will enable the local Church to grant annulments where a canonical finding showed that a failed marriage was not in fact a sacramentally-valid marriage, he said.
Msgr. George Puthusseril, judicial vicar and head of the archdiocese’s Metropolitan Tribunal, told The Florida Catholic that the core annulment process remains unchanged.
“Before, although a tribunal issues an affirmative decision, it had to be reviewed by another diocese, and now it does not require to be automatically sent � but the right of appeal is still there,” Msgr. Puthusseril said. “The pope has initiated a shorter process.”
He added that the annulment process in the Miami Archdiocese is currently not backlogged. The office handles between 240 and 250 annulment cases annually.
Previously, the Metropolitan Tribunal also had to automatically review all annulment judgments from the other dioceses of Florida.
The reformed processes were drafted by a special committee Pope Francis established a year ago. Other changes include giving the local bishop new authority as a judge to render a finding in an annulment case, or to be assisted by others he selects.
“The bishop has the authority to decide whether his tribunal will function with one judge or three judges; it can be two lay people and one cleric. Before it was one lay person and two clerics,” Msgr. Puthusseril said.
Fees for annulments are set locally by each diocese and some dioceses require no fee at all. However, Pope Francis did allow for dioceses to charge in order to cover the salaries of those who work in the tribunals.
Observers have noted that the Church has steadily streamlined the annulments process to make it easier to navigate, less lengthy and less costly.
“It is all for the good of the people, to get them back into the process of the Church and participation in the sacraments,” Msgr. Puthusseril said. “The annulment process is available to everybody to look at if they are in a broken marriage.”
The archdiocese has trained advocates in many parishes to help people navigate the process and gather the necessary paperwork. More information also can be found here, http://tribunal.miamiarch.org/faq_english.htm.
WHAT IS AN ANNULMENT?
What is an annulment? Is it the same thing as a divorce?
An annulment (formally known as a “declaration of nullity”) is a ruling that a particular marriage was null from the beginning � that is, something was gravely wrong at the time the time the wedding vows were made and it prevented a valid marriage from coming into existence.
This is different than a divorce, which proposes to dissolve a marriage that is in existence.
