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Catholic Monitor reader responding to Fr. Dave Nix's post titled Is There a Scriptural Basis for Annulments?: Father David Nix, over at "Padre Pellegrino," has posted a piece deploring the annulment explosion--valid, as far as it goes--but attributing the problem to Tribunals handing out judgments "like candy." It is disappointing that one of the few serious priests with an Internet presence has so little intellectual depth, and so limited pastoral concern, as to leave the conversation at so shallow a level. What if there are more annulments now than ever before because the institutional Church has largely abandoned the Great Commission, leaving more than an entire generation inadequately catechized and therefore too malformed to take on the reality of what Christian marriage entails? Does Father Nix intend to extend this abandonment by writing off the problem without grappling with the underlying issues? I don't think he does, but that is what his facile post comes down to. Even the title of the piece is problematic. It asks--seemingly rhetorically--whether there is any Scriptural basis for annulments, which is to ask whether there is any Scriptural basis for the Church that has always recognized the reality of sacramental invalidity as a possibility, regarding not only Matrimony but other sacraments as well. Is everybody who says they are ordained actually ordained? Then why bother, throughout Church history, determining which groups participate in apostolic succession and which do not? Is everybody who claims to be baptized actually baptized? Then why go through the examinations called for when a person wishes to enter the Catholic Church? In fact, as we should know and prayerfully recall, having just observed the feast of Saint Raymond of Penafort, Catholicism has an established Code of Canon Law based on natural as well as divine positive propositions. To ask whether the 1983 version aligns sufficiently would be different from casting aspersions on canon law in general, as Father Nix has done. It is a shame to see him take the easy way out--parroting the conservative line, just like the liberals parrot theirs--especially when taking the easy way out is precisely what he sets out to denounce in the first place.

adre Peregrino (Fr. Dave Nix)

Is There a Scriptural Basis for Annulments?

The following is from a Catholic Monitor reader responding to Fr. Dave Nix's post titled Is There a Scriptural Basis for Annulments?:

Father David Nix, over at "Padre Pellegrino," has posted a piece deploring the annulment explosion--valid, as far as it goes--but attributing the problem to Tribunals handing out judgments "like candy." It is disappointing that one of the few serious priests with an Internet presence has so little intellectual depth, and so limited pastoral concern, as to leave the conversation at so shallow a level. What if there are more annulments now than ever before because the institutional Church has largely abandoned the Great Commission, leaving more than an entire generation inadequately catechized and therefore too malformed to take on the reality of what Christian marriage entails? Does Father Nix intend to extend this abandonment by writing off the problem without grappling with the underlying issues? I don't think he does, but that is what his facile post comes down to.

Even the title of the piece is problematic. It asks--seemingly rhetorically--whether there is any Scriptural basis for annulments, which is to ask whether there is any Scriptural basis for the Church that has always recognized the reality of sacramental invalidity as a possibility, regarding not only Matrimony but other sacraments as well. Is everybody who says they are ordained actually ordained? Then why bother, throughout Church history, determining which groups participate in apostolic succession and which do not? Is everybody who claims to be baptized actually baptized? Then why go through the examinations called for when a person wishes to enter the Catholic Church?

In fact, as we should know and prayerfully recall, having just observed the feast of Saint Raymond of Penafort, Catholicism has an established Code of Canon Law based on natural as well as divine positive propositions. To ask whether the 1983 version aligns sufficiently would be different from casting aspersions on canon law in general, as Father Nix has done. It is a shame to see him take the easy way out--parroting the conservative line, just like the liberals parrot theirs--especially when taking the easy way out is precisely what he sets out to denounce in the first place. 

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