Seeking Correction of Canon Law Society of America

I just sent a letter to the Archbishop of Washington DC, Cardinal W. McElroy, asking him to judge a publication by the Canon Law Society of America, The Tribunal Handbook, Judicial Procedures in Marriage Nullity Cases, Revised and Updated.

See Our Letter

Because the book is widely used by tribunals and those who interact with them, I asked the Cardinal to judge whether its contents safeguard the faith and morals of the faithful.  Those who are trying to uphold the validity of their marriage—after undergoing the coercion of the no-fault divorce courts—tell me about the difficulties they face as respondents in annulment cases. I think the Handbook is contributing to the problem.

If Cardinal McElroy does not reply to my request, or I am aggrieved by his reply, we can make recourse to a Dicastery in Rome within four months, and eventually the Signatura.

Fr. Gary Yanus wrote the chapter in the CLSA Handbook about initial inquiries, and I challenge his teaching that tribunals should require the parties to have a civil divorce before any annulment petition can be accepted. He says the civil divorce is the tribunals’ proof that a marriage is irreconcilable. However, I see him as erroneously teaching the faithful that a judicial vicar can dispense a party from the canon law that requires one’s bishop’s permission prior to petitioning the divorce court.  Fr. Yanus has been the Judicial Vicar of the Cleveland Tribunal for decades.

The chapter about grounds for nullity was written by a canonist from the Archdiocese of Seattle. I find that she erroneously teaches that a marriage can be found invalid for a grave lack of discretion of judgement because one party didn’t have sufficient discretion about the other party (canon 1095, 2°). I’m asking Cardinal McElroy to instruct the Canon Law Society of America that a 1095, 2° marriage case is supposed to only consider whether a party’s intellect and will were functioning normally enough to choose the essential matrimonial rights and obligations, not choose the particular other spouse.

I challenge an author from the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston who asserts that a tribunal could collect testimony (answer a long questionnaire) prior to a tribunal judicial vicar establishing which grounds for annulment are going to be investigated.  Finally, I asked the Cardinal to intervene regarding the handbook’s teaching about tribunal’s distribution of their final sentences to the parties. A canonist from Milwaukee wrote that it is legal for the tribunal to let a party only read the sentence in a tribunal’s office. I ask the Archbishop to make clear that a sentence is not properly “published” unless each interested party is unimpeded by the tribunal and receives his own copy through a secure delivery method, as required by law and affirmed by papal teaching and Roman jurisprudence.