Annulments: Did anything really change.

There is a great battle raging in the Church about the Pope and his statement on streamlining Annulments.    He is making it too easy cry some; he is simply making welcome changes cry others.

For those of us who live in the real world and listen to its voice Annulments have been one of the greatest scandals in the Church over the past fifty years.   Such was the ease that they were granted in many dioceses that if a couple split up then their relatives immediately told them that they should get an annulment and start again.  Indeed many young men and women took this for granted.   What amazed me was the number of Catholics even in my own family who would still claim that an annulment was not a divorce.   And Protestants just laughed at such hypocrisy.  Of course if the Bishop is following Christ and the Church and not his "I know better mentality" then there is no problem.  People just worry about the bishops who being more human than Jesus will had them out with ease.   But as I say they were doing this under the old rules anyway so what is the difference.  And there is the positive point that Bishops on the spot talking to the petitioners know a lot more than any paperwork can reveal, so if annulments are treated in good faith there is no problem.  The problem of course is this, does the Church still listen to Jesus on the question of marriage?  Certainly many German Bishops do not.  We may be soon knows and the Xian Church.

  

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