VATICAN CITY (AP) β The Vatican’s top lawyer says he favors changing how the church handles marriage annulments to speed them up and reduce costs and red tape.
Cardinal Francesco Coccopalmerio said Thursday that he favors letting individual bishops rather than a church tribunal declare marriages null in certain cases.
Catholic doctrine holds that a church marriage is indissoluble. An annulment is a judgment that the marriage had some inherent defect from the start and can be declared null. Reasons can vary, including that the couple never intended for their marriage to last or that one of the spouses didn’t want children.
Catholics have long complained that it can take years to get an annulment, if they can get one at all.
Coccopalmerio spoke to reporters on the sidelines of a two-week meeting of bishops from around the world debating how church teaching on marriage, divorce, gays and sex can be more relevant to today’s Catholics.
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165-c-14-(Nicole Winfield, AP correspondent)-“and red tape”-AP correspondent Nicole Winfield reports that a top Vatican cardinal wants to streamline annulments, making it easier for divorced Catholics to re-marry. (9 Oct 2014)
< 166-c-12-(Nicole Winfield, AP correspondent)-“a marriage null”-AP correspondent Nicole Winfield reports that the Vatican’s top lawyer favors letting individual bishops make decisions on annulments, changing what has been strictly a judicial church process to an administrative one. (9 Oct 2014) < 167-c-14-(Nicole Winfield, AP correspondent)-“to handle them”-AP correspondent Nicole Winfield reports that Catholics have long grumbled that it can take years to get an annulment, if they can get one at all. (9 Oct 2014) <
