A posting for an "Annulment Information Evening" comes across as advertising for declarations of marital nullity. Are similar "information evenings" available about dispensation from religious vows? Having information sessions on annulments but not on dispensations comes across as a not-so-subtle disrespect for the Sacrament of Marriage.
Assuming that there was a theological justification for an "Annulment Information Evening", where might I find it in the Catechism <www.scborromeo.org/ccc.htm> or Dignitas Connubii <www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/intrptxt/documents/rc_pc_intrptxt_doc_20050125>?
I prayerfully urge the Family Life Office to become more familiar with the Holy Fathers' annual addresses to the Roman Rota, including the most recent one of January 29 <www.zenit.org/article-25062?l=english>:
- "at the distance of 20 years from the Addresses of John Paul II on psychiatry's incapacity in the nullification ofmatrimony,....it seems opportune to ask oneself whether and to what extent these interventions have had an adequate reception in the ecclesiastical tribunals....
- "the fact of a problem that continues to be very real is visible to everyone....of which my venerable Predecessor spoke: that of preserving the ecclesial community 'from the scandal of seeing in practice the value of Christian marriage being destroyed by the exaggerated and almost automatic multiplication of declarations of nullity,...on the pretext of some immaturity or psychic weakness....
- "recall again...distinctions...between 'psychic maturity which is seen as the goal of human development' and 'canonical maturity which instead, is the basic minimum required for establishing the validity of marriage'....'only incapacity and not difficulty in giving consent and in realizing a true community of life and love invalidates a marriage'.... the canonistic dimension of normality, that is inspired by an integral vision of the human person 'also includes moderate forms of psychological difficulty'....
- "it is necessary to rediscover the positive capacity that in principle every human person has to marry by virtue of his very nature as man or woman. Indeed, we run the risk of falling into a form of anthropological pessimism....one cannot confuse the real difficulties confronting many, especially young people who conclude that marital union is normally unthinkable and impracticable with the true incapacity of consent....What is actually at stake is the truth about marriage and about its intrinsic juridical nature....
- " in the reductionist optic that fails to recognize the truth on matrimony, the effective relationship of a true communion of life and love, idealized on a level of pure human well-being, essentially becomes dependent only on accidental factors, and not, instead, on the exercise of human freedom sustained by grace.
- "It is true that this freedom of human nature, 'wounded in the natural powers' and 'inclined to sin' (Catechism of the Catholic Church,n. 405), is limited and imperfect, but not for this reason does it become inauthentic and insufficient....
- "some anthropological and 'humanistic' currents aimed at self-realization and egocentric self-transcendence idealize human beings and marriage to such an extent that they then deny the mental capacity of many people, basing this on elements that do not correspond to the essential requirements of the conjugal bond....
- "capacity makes reference to a basic minimum so that the couple can give their being as a male or as a female to establish that bond to which the great majority of human beings are called....
- "real incapacity...is always an exception to the natural principle of the capacity necessary"
