Annulments And the Catholic Church by Peters Edward

Author:Peters, Edward [Peters, Edward]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ascension Press
Published: 2010-12-02T05:00:00+00:00

Dr. Edward N. Peters received his civil law degree from the University of Missouri at Columbia and his doctoral degree in canon law from the Catholic University of America. He has held a number of teaching and administrative posts, including Director of the Office for Canonical Affairs for the Diocese of San Diego as well as Defender of the Bond and collegiate judge on diocesan and archdiocesan appellate tribunals. He currently is professor of canon law for the Institute for Pastoral Theology in Ypsilanti, Michigan. A frequent guest on Catholic media apostolates, Dr. Peters’ articles and reviews have appeared in a wide variety of Catholic and secular publications. He maintains a canon law website, www.canonlaw.info, and serves as a consultant to many ecclesiastical institutions and persons. He and his wife, Angela, are raising six children.

This book can be read front-to-back, since the questions generally proceed in the same order in which they arise during a typical annulment case. The Index, on the other hand, allows for consultation on a topical basis, since there is no need to explain earlier issues if only the later ones are causing confusion.

A word of caution: Do not take this book and try to analyze your own marriage, or your parents’ marriage, or your children’s marriages, or your friends’ marriages (see Question 100). Do not take it to a pastor or tribunal judge and say, “See? It says right here this annulment must be granted (or denied).” Because this book does not say that.

Every annulment case is heard under the same set of laws, but no two annulment cases present anything like the same set of facts. The information in this book is provided in the context of a specific question, but even these questions exist in a larger and more complex context. This is why judging is both a science and an art.

In any event, it should be obvious that this book is designed neither to encourage more annulment cases nor to discourage them. Actually, this book couldn’t do either, since the canon law under which annulment cases are adjudicated is already in force, and the facts assessed in an annulment case are already in place before a canon lawyer ever sees them. To put it another way, the information in this book can be used legitimately by some people to advance annulment petitions they desire and by others to resist annulment petitions they oppose. My hope in both situations is to help the people involved in or affected by the annulment process to understand the process better and to participate in it more effectively. If this, in turn, helps to ensure that the decisions reached by diocesan tribunals in annulment cases are as accurate as possible, I shall be satisfied.

—Dr. Edward Neal Peters

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