Some common grounds for annulment requests include that a petitioner never intended to be permanently married or faithful, and that mental illness or substance abuse prevented them from consenting to a lifelong marriage.
What qualifies you to get an annulment in the Catholic Church?
Usually, a person seeking an annulment is someone who has been married, is now divorced, and wishes to marry again in the Church. The intention to marry again is not a necessary aspect to attaining an annulment; devoted Catholics may simply prefer to have their divorce legitimized by their Parish.
What are acceptable reasons for an annulment?
The only way to obtain a civil annulment that legally dissolves your marriage is by proving one of the following grounds: fraud or misrepresentation, lack of consummation, incest, bigamy, lack of consent, unsound mind, or force.
What are the most common grounds for annulment?
An annulment is a court ruling that a marriage was never valid. The most common ground for annulment is fraud and misrepresentation. For example, one person may not have disclosed to the other a prior divorce, a criminal record, an infectious disease, or an inability to engage in sex or have children.
Are Catholic annulments ever denied?
Almost half of Catholic marriages end in divorce, the same rate as for other Americans. Of those who applied in 1992 in the United States, according to Vatican statistics, 83 percent received annulments and 2 percent were denied. Fifteen percent of the cases were abandoned by the applicants.
Can adultery be grounds for annulment?
Infidelity is one of the most common reasons for filing a case, but it is not considered a ground for annulment. Infidelity can only be an acceptable basis for legal separation or filing a case for concubinage or adultery.
Why would a Catholic annulment be denied?
Reasons for Annulment Denial
You may not have grounds for an annulment, which could lead to a denial. In some cases, grounds may include aspects like bigamy, the fact that your partner was already married, coercion, forced marriage, and fraud if you were tricked into marriage.
What makes a marriage valid in the Catholic Church?
A valid Catholic marriage results from four elements: (1) the spouses are free to marry; (2) they freely exchange their consent; (3) in consenting to marry, they have the intention to marry for life, to be faithful to one another and be open to children; and (4) their consent is given in the canonical form, i.e., in …