{"id":5425,"date":"2015-09-10T15:51:26","date_gmt":"2015-09-10T19:51:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/66.147.242.160\/~stumbli4\/?p=5425"},"modified":"2015-09-10T22:21:08","modified_gmt":"2015-09-11T02:21:08","slug":"annulments-francismercy-is-really-just-relieving-people-of-the-burdens-of-faith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/?p=5425","title":{"rendered":"Annulments: FrancisMercy is Really Just Relieving People of the Burdens of Faith"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"My<\/a>

My annulment’s finished already?!<\/p><\/div>\n

In a followup to his excellent analysis of the new merciful FrancisAnnulment edicts released this week, canonist Dr. Peters has a telling revisit <\/a>to the story of the Pope’s niece, Maria.<\/p>\n

Pope Francis\u2019 niece, Mar\u00eda In\u00e9s Narvaja, thinks she understands her uncle\u2019s interest in fast-track annulments. Yes, the lawyer in me cautions that Maria\u2019s attributions of statements to her uncle, then-Abp. Bergoglio, are hearsay, but, we\u2019re not in a courtroom, we\u2019re in the blogosphere. Besides what Maria says about the future Francis is illuminating.<\/p>\n

Maria recalls that she (or her intended?) applied for an annulment but was told by Argentine Church officials that her case would take four years. She reacted with a young-woman-in-love\u2019s \u201cpffft!\u201d and announced that she would marry civilly. Per Mar\u00eda, her uncle endorsed the idea. Maybe, maybe not, that\u2019s not the question here. The question is whether Maria\u2019s (or her intended\u2019s) annulment case would really have taken four years (despite 1983 CIC 1453, setting 18 months as the norm). Personally, I believe her.<\/p>\n

I once worked on a marriage case that (fascinating canon-law-of-jurisdiction details omitted) could have been heard in either America or Argentina. Both tribunals turned to Rome for guidance, with the Argentine tribunal asking that the case be heard in the USA! They said their cases take an average of, yes,\u00a0four years to process. That delay was not necessarily the Argentine Church\u2019s fault; they probably did not have the resources to hear marriage cases more quickly. But it lends support to Maria\u2019s claim about long delays in Argentine tribunals\u00a0and that in turn would help explain Francis\u2019\u00a0impatience to fix an obvious pastoral problem.<\/p>\n

Of course, what might well be a serious problem in one\u00a0Church need not be a problem in another, and a cure for a problem\u2014setting aside whether the cure itself is really a good one\u2014imposed where a cure is not<\/em> needed can actually cause even more problems. Still, it\u2019s an interesting insight into Francis\u2019 attitudes.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

‘Attitude’ is the appropriate word here.\u00a0 Uncle Bergoglio’s attitude is bigger than the Church and its guidance, bigger than her teaching.\u00a0 It’s the attitude of a Protestant ‘reformer.’<\/p>\n

I think it’s probably true that Maria’s uncle, our Francis, told her to just skip the annulment and get remarried.\u00a0 Based upon all kinds of similar unconfirmed stories Pope Francis seems to have spent his entire career waiving Church teaching and rules.\u00a0 He hates rules almost as much as he hates those Pharisees.\u00a0 Rules are the opposite of mercy, see.\u00a0 You have to have the right balance <\/a>they say, as if these were in opposition.\u00a0 So trim some of those rules!\u00a0 Be nice! (Be liberal.)<\/p>\n

But of course, hating rules doesn’t make you merciful.\u00a0 It just makes you criminal and if those rules violate God’s laws, it makes you sinful.<\/p>\n

It’s not mercy to enable heinous acts like marriage betrayal.\u00a0 On the contrary it’s ruthless to those involved.\u00a0 It’s an injustice to all the other family members and wound to society.\u00a0 People underestimate the damage done because it rides beneath the surface, like abortion.\u00a0 Even murder relieves pain and yields benefits…for the living.\u00a0 For some people, murder is mercy.<\/p>\n

How does a man like Francis maintain such a twisted view on life?\u00a0 It’s a mystery.<\/p>\n

This story demonstrates something else which is very timely.\u00a0 It reveals that Francis believes annulments are really just the same as divorces.\u00a0 He couldn’t care less about the procedure because he couldn’t care less about the grounds.\u00a0 It certainly is cruel and bureaucratic to make people wait a long time for some useless procedure.\u00a0 The only problem is, it’s not useless.\u00a0 It has to do with whether people were actually married.\u00a0 It concerns their souls, their abandoned spouses, and everyone else.<\/p>\n

These new declarations are just ‘no fault’ annulments.\u00a0 Any excuse will do, especially if they both want it and neither side actually cares.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a followup to his excellent analysis of the new merciful FrancisAnnulment edicts released this week, canonist Dr. Peters has a telling revisit to the story of the Pope’s niece, Maria. Pope Francis\u2019 niece, Mar\u00eda In\u00e9s Narvaja, thinks she understands her uncle\u2019s interest in fast-track annulments. Yes, the lawyer in me cautions that Maria\u2019s attributions …<\/span> Read More →<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[676,26,530,694,693,695],"class_list":["post-5425","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-annulments","tag-catholic","tag-francis","tag-maria","tag-niece","tag-remarriage"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5425","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5425"}],"version-history":[{"count":32,"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5425\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5501,"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5425\/revisions\/5501"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}