Archbishop Charles Scicluna welcomed the Pope’s reforms of the Church process for marriage annulment announced yesterday, defining them as the most forward-reaching changes in 300 years.
Mgr Scicluna said the reforms placed bishops in a situation where they could address the concerns of couples whose marriage had broken down in a process that allowed a timely response.
“We simply need to respect the truth of the situation and the change gives us the opportunity to do that with speedy procedures. The reforms have put bishops in a position that enables them to help couples seeking a timely judgment on their marriage situation,” he told the Times of Malta.
The reforms allow for cheaper, fast-track decisions and remove automatic appeals to speed up and simplify the procedure. The change regulates how bishops around the world determine when a fundamental flaw has made a marriage invalid.
‘We need to respect the truth of the situation’
The biggest reform involves a shorter process, handled by the bishop himself, which can be used when both spouses request an annulment. It can also be used when other proof makes a more drawn-out investigation unnecessary.
“I think these are historical changes in the procedures. They are probably the most forward-reaching changes in 300 years. This is about giving a service to people going through the very difficult experience of marriage breakdown. Justice needs to be done and they have the right to a timely response,” Mgr Scicluna said.
In his document on the matter, the Pope insisted that marriage remained an indissoluble union and that the new regulations were not meant to help to end such union. Rather, he said, the reform was aimed at speeding up and simplifying the process so that the faithful could find justice.
It calls for the shorter process to be completed within 45 days. The overall aim of the reform “is the salvation of souls”, the Holy Father said.
The reforms have put bishops in a position that enables them to help couples seeking a timely judgment on their marriage situation
Another reform is the removal of the automatic appeal after the first decision is made. Appeals are still possible but they are no longer automatic, a simplification that has been used in the US for many years.
Where a three-judge tribunal is not available, the reform allows the bishop to be the judge himself or to delegate the handling of the cases to a single priest-judge with two assistants.
That measure is aimed at providing Catholic couples with recourse to annulments in poorer parts of the world or areas where the Catholic Church does not have the resources or manpower to have fully-functioning tribunals.
The Pope also called for fees to be waived, except for the “just” payment of tribunal personnel.
The annulment process has long been criticised for being complicated, costly and out of reach for many Catholics.
Mgr Scicluna said money was not an issue in Malta because the Church subsidised the tribunal. The Archdiocese spends €360,000 a year funding the tribunal.
The fees lawyers were charging are another matter. “There are concerns over the high fees being charged by lawyers but we have no control over that,” Mgr Scicluna said.
He said that the main focus of the reforms, which come into force on December 8, was to deliver justice in the shortest possible length of time.
He stressed that the reforms were not about including new grounds for annulment but to make the process swifter and easier. “This is about the search for the truth. True freedom is based on truth,” Mgr Scicluna added.
Without an annulment, divorced Catholics who remarry outside the Church are considered to be adulterers living in sin and are forbidden from receiving Holy Communion, a dilemma at the core of a current debate in the Church.