Is Annulment Catholic Divorce

Growing Together in our Catholic Faith

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Is annulment �Catholic divorce?�

By Fr. John Diezten

A Protestant lady and I had a conversation about a local divorce and remarked that it would be terrible for the children.� When I mentioned that Catholics do not believe in divorce, she looked at me and replied, �Yes, I know.� You call it annulment.�� Another lady remarked, �Divorce or annulment, what�s the difference?�� Can you give me any help on what to say?

Judging from the number of letters I receive asking almost the same question, the confusion on this topic among Catholics as well as Protestants is extensive.

A good deal of the confusion, in my opinion, results from the mish-mash of information about annulments and the Catholic Church presented in the news media.� There is a huge difference between divorce and annulment.� Even complete ignorance of church law and a slight knowledge of civil law will apprise anyone of that fact, since annulment is as much a reality in civil or state law as it is in canon law.

Let�s suppose a fairly rich man tires of his marriage and wants to make sure his wife gets no alimony, as she might after a divorce.� It is not uncommon in this or other circumstances for the man to petition in the court for an annulment, a declaration that for some legal reason there never was a marriage in the first place.� This (supposedly) would eliminate any financial claim she might exercise had there been a real marriage and a simple divorce.

One could not, I think, convince that man or his wife or the judge that there is no real and significant difference, but only a semantic one, between a divorce and an annulment.

It is not possible to expand further here, but the Catholic Church�s understanding of annulment is basically similar to that of civil law.� The Church does indeed, with Paul in the New Testament, believe that any Christian marriage is a sacrament of the church and is unassailable even by the church.� In other words, it cannot be ended by any sort of �divorce.�

It also believes, however, that circumstances can be present which might only become absolutely clear years later, but which made a true marriage---that is, a full Christian commitment to a common life of love and all that means in a husband-wife relationship---impossible for those two people.

When the church is asked by one of the parties to study this possibility and determine as much as is humanly possible whether or not a real marriage was present, it must in justice respond to that request as fairly and honestly as it can.� This is what it does in an annulment procedure.