Church Instruct “Cohabitation is to be Restored”
- Posted by Mary's Advocates
- On June 16, 2025
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We have detractors who claim the Church would never investigate simultaneously two different canonical marriage petitions: one spouse’s allegation of invalidity and the other bringing a marriage case of separation. This occurs among separated faithful who contact me after the other spouse has already forced a no-fault civil divorce on the family and subsequently asks for a Church annulment. Mary’s Advocates invites separated faithful to use our template petition invoking the Code of Canon Law when the other spouse has abandoned the marriage. This same petition can be used as a counterclaim responding to an allegation of invalidity. The separated faithful spouse asks for a finding that the other abandoned the marriage and asks for a determination of the other’s obligations (i.e. restore an intact home).
If our detractors were correct, no tribunal could ever investigate the two petitions at once. However, to support Mary’s Advocates’ position, I’m publishing excerpts from a 2011 decision issued by the appellate Tribunal of the Roman Rota. At the beginning of all tribunal procedures, the judge must specify the legal question being investigated. This is called the formula of the doubt (also known as joinder of the issue, or contesation litis). The doubt established on 4 April 2008 by the Tribunal of the Roman Rota was this:
Original Latin: Dubium die 4 aprilis 2008 per decretum Ponentis hac sub forma concordatum est: Dubium die 4 aprilis 2008 per decretum Ponentis hac sub forma concordatum est: 1) An constet de matrimonii nullitate, in casu, ob mulieris incapacitatem assumendi onera coniugalia essentialia, ob causam naturae psychicae, ad mentem can. 818, n. 3 CCEO; 2) An constet de viri errore quoad qualitatem directe et principaliter intentam, cum dolo coniunctam, ad mentem can. 820 CCEO; subordinate quidem et quatenus negative, utrum restaurandus sit convictus an potius separatio declarari debeat. [CCEO c. 818, 820 = CIC 1095, 1097] Source Coram Caberletti, 20 January 2011. RRDec. 103 (2018): 1-21. no. 1. pg. 3, In Rotae Romanae Tribunal Decisiones Seu Sententiae. LINK.
I emphasize that the Rota or the Vatican’s publishing house—in its selected sentences shared in its 2018 volume—teaches the world that a tribunal could issue a sentence deciding that “cohabitation is to be restored.”
This contrasts with the paper presented at the Canon Law Society of America’s 2019 conference, titled “The Separation of the Spouses: Old Law, New Questions.” The presenter cited an unpublished decree from a Roman Rota judge who teaches if the Church were ever to oblige a spouse to maintain an intact home, that would be the equivalent of slavery.
For those interested, you can read my analysis of the CLSA presentation in Mary’s Advocates paper, “Is Review of Vigilance of Cleveland Tribunal Appropriate Due to the Divorce Mentality & Irregular Procedures?”
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