Is Annulment Catholic Divorce

Growing Together in our Catholic Faith

Each week we explore an aspect of our Catholicism to grow a deeper understanding of our faith

Is annulment “Catholic divorce?”

By Fr. John Diezten

A Protestant lady and I had a conversation about a local divorce and remarked that it would be terrible for the children. When I mentioned that Catholics do not believe in divorce, she looked at me and replied, “Yes, I know. You call it annulment.” Another lady remarked, “Divorce or annulment, what’s the difference?” Can you give me any help on what to say?

Judging from the number of letters I receive asking almost the same question, the confusion on this topic among Catholics as well as Protestants is extensive.

A good deal of the confusion, in my opinion, results from the mish-mash of information about annulments and the Catholic Church presented in the news media. There is a huge difference between divorce and annulment. Even complete ignorance of church law and a slight knowledge of civil law will apprise anyone of that fact, since annulment is as much a reality in civil or state law as it is in canon law.

Let’s suppose a fairly rich man tires of his marriage and wants to make sure his wife gets no alimony, as she might after a divorce. It is not uncommon in this or other circumstances for the man to petition in the court for an annulment, a declaration that for some legal reason there never was a marriage in the first place. This (supposedly) would eliminate any financial claim she might exercise had there been a real marriage and a simple divorce.

One could not, I think, convince that man or his wife or the judge that there is no real and significant difference, but only a semantic one, between a divorce and an annulment.

It is not possible to expand further here, but the Catholic Church’s understanding of annulment is basically similar to that of civil law. The Church does indeed, with Paul in the New Testament, believe that any Christian marriage is a sacrament of the church and is unassailable even by the church. In other words, it cannot be ended by any sort of “divorce.”

It also believes, however, that circumstances can be present which might only become absolutely clear years later, but which made a true marriage---that is, a full Christian commitment to a common life of love and all that means in a husband-wife relationship---impossible for those two people.

When the church is asked by one of the parties to study this possibility and determine as much as is humanly possible whether or not a real marriage was present, it must in justice respond to that request as fairly and honestly as it can. This is what it does in an annulment procedure.