Greg Daly
Leading canon lawyers have poured cold water on suggestions by Pope Francis that “the great majority” of Catholic marriages may in fact be invalid.
The Pope commented at a press conference at the Diocese of Rome’s pastoral congress that the prevalent “culture of the provisional” means couples getting married often don’t understand what it means to say they are marrying for the rest of their lives, claiming that “because of this the great majority of our sacramental marriages are null”.
The Vatican subsequently issued a papally-approved transcript, with the text being revised to say that “a portion” rather than “the great majority” of modern marriages are invalid.
Commenting on the revision, Dublin’s Msgr Paul Churchill, president of the Canon Law Society of Great Britain and Ireland, told The Irish Catholic, “That makes sense. I think that it’s better that way than ‘the great majority’.”
Msgr Churchill acknowledged that “we are living in a society where people are a little bit more glib about things”, but said the nullity of superficially valid marriages can’t be presumed. “That would be a matter for the marriage tribunals down the road to look at, if marriages do break down,” he said.
Commitment
No marriage should be presumed to be invalid unless proven so, according to Fr John McKeever, administrator of the Armagh Regional Marriage Tribunal. Assuring The Irish Catholic that “the great majority of marriages are not invalid”, he said in his experience couples marry fully aware that marriage is a “permanent commitment” and intend their marriages to last.
“The Code of Canon Law says marriage enjoys the favour of the law, which means that any marriage that’s celebrated properly is presumed to be valid unless the contrary is proven,” he told The Irish Catholic, continuing, “so anybody who’s married can rest assured in good conscience that the marriage is valid unless after a marriage unfortunately breaks down they go to a tribunal and have it investigated.”