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he Annulment Process
he Annulment Process
Myth Two
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Myth Eight
Myth Nine
Myth Ten

Myth No. 8:
"Annulments are just for young people"

Petitioners married a decade or more, with children practically grown, are not representative; most have had shorter unions and, in the process of maturation, are confronting the wrenching discovery that they married without a valid foundation. Even at the risk of understandable criticism, tribunals may not categorically refuse more mature petitioners who have not faced this discovery earlier, denying them due process by reason of age, social status, number of children or time spent cohabiting. When pursuing lawful process, however, such petitioners, no less than the entire Church community, bear a responsibility to avert any scandal such "counterintuitive" situations might engender.

An awakening inspired after counseling, spiritual renewal, a health crisis, or entry into a twelve-step program, may lead one, no longer young, to admit that neither time nor children could "cure" a congenitally malfunctioning union. Fear and denial, postponing the day of reckoning, may even have induced acting out in workaholism, infidelity and violence, or repression into chronic depression.

Couples courageously seeking renewal through appropriate means may still recover healthy roots within a shattered relationship even as they prune away the dead branches. Where sheer neglect has allowed the weeds to acquire a stranglehold on the soul of a union, sacramental confession may be the essential first step towards full restoration, most certainly not to be completed without deep mutual commitment and professional counseling. The Church sponsors such efforts through parish resources, family life agencies and programs like "Retrouvaille."

Tribunals bear a tremendous burden to apply special scrutiny over petitions contemplated by those who, in "middle crisis" or near "burnout," may only be running away from their responsibilities or denying their own capacity to live up to their commitments. How could such persons reasonably regard themselves fit for another committed union, if that is what they (or a new object of affection) long for?

Those who are fulfilling their commitments, while belatedly coming to terms with the truth about themselves and an earlier relationship, should not feel embarrassed if conscience impels them to seek an annulment. Not uncommonly, a brief and distant marriage of questionable validity, followed by a stable civil union of many years perhaps, may still be impairing full sacramental communion with the Church.

Two people, preferring a Church wedding, may have entered a civil union, because of a previously marriage to someone else. While unable to receive communion, they can still go to church, like any other members of the community. A parish priest, noticing their reticence to receive, and learning their circumstances, may direct them to a tribunal. Such person need not abandon their hopes for a "convalidation" (official Church confirmation) of the second union someday.