International   

Tighten annulment norms: Pope

Tom Kington

Rome: Pope Benedict XVI has warned Vatican judges to get tough on couples who ask the Catholic Church to annul their marriages.

The Pope ordered the clampdown after figures showed that the church's appeals court allowed 69 annulments in 2005 for reasons which included husbands being too attached to their mothers.

The court, known as the Sacra Rota, considers petitions from couples claiming their marriages were never truly valid.

Apart from the get-out clause for women married to ``mummy's boys'', an ``inability to assume conjugal obligations'', usually due to a childhood trauma, appears among the successful reasons for annulment in 2005, as do alcoholism, use of cannabis, infidelity and a serious lack of ``moderation in judgment'' by a partner.

The Vatican does not permit divorcees to remarry in church and a growing number of annulment requests are winding their way from lower ecclesiastical courts to the appeals court in Rome, with the majority Italian. The Pope appeared to take a hard line when he told the court's 20 judges to ``respond with courage and faith'' to ``a distorted interpretation of the canonical norms''. —

© Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Stories in this Section

$4.5-billion aid for Colombo
Communication links cut off
Six-party talks from February 8
Northern Ireland polls in March
Steps to end mysterious killings
WHO caution on bird flu
Tighten annulment norms: Pope
"Afghan forces capable of deterring terrorists"
U.S. rebukes Israel over cluster bomb "misuse"
Moratorium on election
Ex-Ministers held
Hillary seeks to win over sceptical Iowa

Copyright © 2007, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu