AFTER Pope Francis’s controversial statement allowing priests during the Year of Mercy to “absolve” sins committed by contrite women who have had abortions, the leader of the Catholic Church has now radically revised the process by which Catholics may annul their marriages to make it easier, faster and cheaper.
This is especially significant for Filipinos back home who cannot remarry because divorce is not yet legal in the Philippines. The only option for estranged couples is to seek marriage annulment in court, the price of which is not affordable to most Filipinos. But even if the marriage is annulled judicially, Catholic couples cannot re-marry through Catholic rites unless the Church declares their previous marriage null and void.
Without going through Church annulments, Catholics who remarry through civil rites are banned from receiving the Holy Communion, deemed by many as “a painful exclusion from the church’s chief sacrament.”
“Some procedures are so long and so burdensome and people give up”, Pope Francis said in 2014, as reported by CNN.
The Catholic Church announced on Tuesday, September 8, that the following changes will become part of Catholic canon law on December 8, 2015 — the beginning of Francis’ declared “Year of Mercy”:
1. Eliminating a second review by a cleric before a marriage can be nullified.
2. Giving bishops the ability to fast-track and grant the annulments themselves in certain circumstances — for example, when spousal abuse or an extramarital affair has occurred.
3. The process should be free, except for a nominal fee for administrative costs, and should be completed within 45 days.
Pope Francis reaffirms the “indissolubility of the marriage bond,” but also says that “charity and mercy demand that the Church, as mother, be close to her children who consider themselves separated.”
As CNN stated in its report, this move is part of a series of reforms by Pope Francis “as he seeks to make the church more responsive to the real needs of lay Catholics, especially those who have long felt marginalized by the hierarchy”.
The Pope said that in the end, the Church’s many laws and institutions must be aimed at one chief purpose — “the salvation of souls.”
Do you laud Pope Francis in his reforms to make the Catholic Church more welcoming and inclusive to people — saints and sinners alike?
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Gel Santos Relos is the anchor of TFC’s “Balitang America.” Views and opinions expressed by the author in this column are are solely those of the author and not of Asian Journal and ABS-CBN-TFC. For comments, go to www.TheFil-AmPerspective.com, https://www.facebook.com/Gel.Santos.Relos
