Vatican & ETWN News Promoting “Healing” Annulments

Montse Alvarado, the new Prefect of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Communication, and President of ETWN News, promoted healing annulments for everyone who is divorced. Bai Macfarlane of Mary’s Advocates responds.

The interview clip was posted on Gloria.tv on June 7, and Montse made these statements on March 10, 2025.

Bai’s Response:

So the annulment is a healing ministry.

Healing for who? Is it healing for children born of a marriage where they used to know that their mom and dad got along half normally and then one of the parents kind of ran out on the marriage?

That’s not healing for children.

Is it healing for the spouse who was faithful to the marriage and wants the abandoner, or the one who’s committing adultery, to work on reconciling? It’s not healing for that person either.

So, it’s healing for petitioners who want an annulment. I go back to what are the grounds for the annulment.

If the grounds was grave lack of discretion of judgment, that means the petitioner is accusing themselves of being so messed up mentally at the time of the marriage that they couldn’t understand and freely choose some simple things: permanence, openness to children, no adultery, and orientation towards what’s required to do the raising of children, which is mutual help.

And if someone is so mentally messed up that they can’t freely choose that, the canon law research that I’ve done—and I’ve got tons of it logged on Mary’s Advocates website—that ground applies to people, according to St. Pope John Paul II, who have severe psychopathologies at the time of entering marriage.

I don’t think that Montse Alvarado would have alleged that about herself, but she might have been coached.