Woman Standing Steadfast to Marriage, Prevails on Appeal

This is an open letter to diocesan personnel and clergy who wanted an update on a Respondent’s  marriage annulment situation. The identities of the parties and tribunals are omitted in this blog.  We’ll call the diocese where the husband petitioned the ”Local” tribunal, and the appellate tribunal the “Metropolitan.” 

To whom it concerns:

I was relieved to learn that the Metropolitan tribunal overturned the annulment that was issued in by my husband’s Local diocese tribunal in 2017.  In summary, the document the Local tribunal mailed me in 2017 was so defective that no annulment ever could legally go into effect in the first place.

If everyone else was treated like I was, the Local tribunal has issued hundreds and hundreds of defective annulment notifications.  When I participated in the Local tribunal’s proceedings, I trusted them, because I trust the Church. However, when I met the tribunal’s investigators, I had a very uneasy feeling because they all encouraged me to embrace my “new life” with freedom from my first husband. There was no respect for the possibility that our marriage was – in fact – valid.

When my husband and I were having a marriage crisis, I expected Church personnel to hold him accountable to uphold his marriage promises; “What therefore God hath joined together, let no man put asunder” (Mat. 19:6).  We need to follow God’s Law.  Instead, my husband says that priests and his Catholic friends told him he was doing nothing wrong and encouraged him to get his annulment.

For a couple years, after receiving only what the Local tribunal sent me, I figured the Church was corrected and my marriage was invalid. None-the-less, I was very sad and the Local tribunal never told me any reason for invalidity.  However, some people I met in a new parish started to talk to me about the possibility of my still being truly married.  Finally, a knowledgeable priest, cautioned me that something was very wrong with the so-called decree that the Local tribunal gave me.

Eventually, I got the Metropolitan tribunal to instruct the Local tribunal to prepare a proper document containing the required elements. Thereafter, I appealed to the Metropolitan tribunal and asserted that the Local tribunal’s justification for finding our marriage invalid was unfounded. The Metropolitan tribunal agreed.

CHRONOLOGY

In January of 2015, I received a letter from the Local tribunal telling me that my husband petitioned for a finding that our marriage was invalid. They informed me in September of 2016  that they were investigating whether either my husband, or myself, had a grave lack of discretion of judgment concerning the essential matrimonial rights and obligations (canon 1095, 2°).

We had married in the Catholic Church and, in my opinion, had undergone a thorough pre-marital investigation. At the time of engagement, we were both independent professionals who were mature enough to navigate our lives as normal, functioning adults.

I followed the instructions that the Local tribunal gave me. In January of 2017, I received their letter telling me, 1st) my marriage was found invalid, and 2nd) I was on a deadline of 15-days to notify them of any intention to appeal.  This letter didn’t tell me which spouse was found to be the cause of invalidity, nor the canon-law-based-reason for annulment. Several years later, I found out that no 15-day deadline can start counting down until after a party has been given her own copy of the full definitive sentence (which shows the reasons based in law, and fact, for the determination made by the Local tribunal). The Local tribunal only sent me a very short letter saying they judged our marriage is invalid and didn’t tell me that a full sentence, giving reasons, based in law and fact, even existed.

In February of 2017, I received another letter from Local tribunal with a document they called “official copy of the declaration of the invalidity of your marriage.” Little did I know, at the time, that this paper they mailed me was not the document I should have received.

Every interested party in an annulment case is supposed be sent his/her own copy of the tribunal’s full definitive sentence.  If a tribunal does not make it blatantly obvious to the parties that they have the right to have their own full copy of the entire sentence delivered to them by a secure shipping method, then NO DEADLINES for appeal start counting down. Further, neither does any decree of invalidity go into effect. In other words, neither party is free to marry someone else in a Catholic ceremony.

With the help of Mary’s Advocates, in July 2021, I wrote to the Local tribunal and asked for my own copy of the full definitive sentence. I received an undated document which is a null juridic act and counts as no judgment at all.  I eventually appealed to the Metropolitan tribunal asking for help getting a proper, authentic, DATED, signed copy of the Local tribunal’s full decision.

The Metropolitan instructed the Local tribunal to issue a proper — dated — judgment, which, thereafter, was ripe for appeal. In my complaint of appeal, I told the Metropolitan all the reasons that I think the Local tribunal’s use of canon 1095, 2° was erroneous and I described how the facts relative to our marriage and courtship demonstrate validity.

I just received the letter from the Metropolitan tribunal announcing that they overruled the Local tribunal’s decree, and because I am an interested party, the Metropolitan tribunal is going to mail me, via certified mail, my own copy of their full decision.

Sincerely,

Aggrieved Annulment Respondent who Prevailed on Appeal
(edited by Bai Macfarlane, founder Mary’s Advocates)