A few weeks ago we heard Christ’s striking words: “Therefore what God has joined together human beings must not separate.” He was talking about the unbreakable bond of sacramental marriage. In the homily that weekend I explained that the Church does not have divorce because of this unbreakable bond. Of course I can only fit so much in a homily (unless many would like me to go longer; just let me know), and so more questions need answering, especially since we do not live in a perfect world. Many enter marriage with the best of intentions only to find a completely different situation later on. So I would like to provide some answers to questions surrounding annulments, divorce, and remarriage in the weeks to follow.
Perhaps the most common question I get asked is this one: Are children of annulled marriages illegitimate? The thought process is that if an annulment is a statement that a marriage never existed, how can the children from an annulled marriage be anything but illegitimate? This is the first question I hear when the topic of annulments comes up and it is very worrisome to many parents. It is important to clarify this misconception so that people will not be kept away from the annulment process (if needed). The short answer to this question is “no,” the children of an annulled marriage are not illegitimate, nor does it change the parents’ responsibility toward their children. In fact, during the annulment procedures the Church constantly reminds petitioners of their moral obligation to provide for the proper upbringing of their children. The children always possess all those rights associated with their basic human dignity as created in the image of God and those rights which they have as baptized members of the Christian faithful.
At the time of the child’s birth, he or she was born of a legal marriage in civil law and a putative marriage in canon law. “Putative” means that at least one person thought in good faith that the marriage was valid. Therefore, at the moment of the child’s birth, he or she was civilly and canonically legitimate and an annulment does not retroactively affect a child’s legitimacy (please see Code of Canon Law 1137).
The Church wants to do all it can to help couples and children in an annulment case. The same is true for the couple as well. When the Church determines an annulment it is not looking for a “winner.” Tribunals try to answer this question: is it proved that what seemed to be a marriage was – usually through no one’s sin or crime – in fact only an attempted marriage? The decree of nullity (the proper term for “annulment”) certifies that despite the fact that there was a wedding, and despite the fact that the parties believed that they were married, due to various reasons a valid sacramental bond never existed (the civil marriage did exist however since the requirements to be civilly married are very basic). If the decree of nullity is given it has consequences, but a child’s legitimacy is not one of them.