The Church’s Position on Annulment and Divorce

In view of the fact that the Catholic Church proclaims the indissolubility of the marriage bond ,how explain the re-marriage of Catholics while both parties to a former union are living?

In all such cases the Church does not sever the marriage bond, but proclaims that a bond never really exist. The marriage bond is a serious and sacred tie. To be valid it must conform to the requirements of nature and law. whenever the Church examines into a marriage, it is not with a view to dissolving it, but only of learning whether or not its bond was valid

A contract must be entered into freely. If force or fear be employed in a civil contract, it is null. Under intimidation a person may do almost anything. The Church decrees that both parties to the marriage contract must be free. If it can be established that the marriage was forced by violence or unlawful threats, it is no marriage. When the Roman rota declared that the Marlborough Vanderbilt marriage was null and void because of coercion, unusual interest and considerable misunderstanding was created. Annulment is not divorce. Divorce is the dissolution of the marriage bond. Annulment is the declaration that no such bond existed. The Catholic Church in the case of a consummated Christian marriage, has never granted a divorce with the right to remarry. It has declared many annulments of marriages. Every time a civil court sets aside a contract by declaring it null and void, it pronounces an annulment. The civil court does not break a contract by annulling it but simply affirms that the agreement in question was no contract at all. Marriage is a contract. Christ elevated the christian marriage contract to the dignity of a sacrament but it remains essentially a contract. By the marriage ceremony the contracting parties mutually dispose of what is of most consequence to each, namely their own persons. The very nature of a contract requires that what one disposes of must be one’s own, and that one must be free to dispose of it or to retain it. A lack of free consent would invalidate a marriage even if the Catholic Church never existed. Natural justice and natural law demand that a person be free in executing a contract. In any civilized country, if a person were coerced into signing a civil contract, as Consuelo Vanderbilt was coerced in her marriage contract,the courts would nullify it. It may seem to some people that to annual marriage because of the absence of free consent is to open the door to laxity. But it must be remembered that the existence of coercion must be proved beyond a shadow of doubt. The testimony of the coerced party must be established by unquestionable corroboration. Annulment,far from letting down the bars of Christian marriage, makes stronger than ever the barrier to divorce. The Church which has annulled the marriage bond of Marlborough’s invalid marriage suffered the loss of England to the Faith rather than break the bond of the valid marriage of her king, Henry VIII.

(Martin Scott S. J.; Marriage Problems)