Annulment: The Wedding That Was : How the Church Can Declare a Marriage Null

Annulment: The Wedding That Was : How the Church Can Declare a Marriage Null
by Michael Smith Foster

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Book Summary Information

Author: Michael Smith Foster
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 1999-04
ISBN: 0809138441
Number of pages: 205
Publisher: Paulist Press
Accessories:

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Book Reviews of Annulment: The Wedding That Was : How the Church Can Declare a Marriage Null

Book Review: The world's strangest definition of legitimacy
Summary: 3 Stars

This book was published by the Paulist Press and has a Nihil Obstat, so in theory it should be an accurate presentation of the issues.

However, on pages 185-186, on Q. 97, Do declarations of nullity render children illegitimate (not, by the way, included in the index, which refers only to p. 97 for legitimacy and has no entry for illegitimacy at all), it reads:

"Second, the misappropriation of the term _illegitimate_ indicates a misunderstanding of legitimacy. _Legitimacy_ is a term used by many legal systems throughout the world. The term indicates knowledge of a child's paternity . . . The term _legitimacy_ connotes that a child's father is the husband of the child's mother at the time of conception or birth. In no way could a declaration of nullity deny a child's paternity. At the time of birth, the legally presumed relationship between the child's father and mother was indeed that of husband and wife. A declaration of nullity does not deny this, so the legitimacy of the child cannot be affected."

There are major problems here. First of all, "legitimacy" and "known paternity" are not the same thing at all. There have, historically, been "acknowledged illegitimate children" in which a man voluntarily claimed responsibility for a child born out of wedlock. There have been "bastardy bonds" in which, in the days before blood testing and DNA testing, a court assigned responsibility for the begetting and support of a child to a man. There are, today, numerous paternity suits brought my mothers, social service agencies, and other entities for numerous purposes, ranging from support to obtaining a relinquishing of parental rights for adoption. Paternity is _not_ dependent upon the parents' being married to one another at the time of conception or birth.

On p. 185, the author points out that, "In Church law a marriage that is declared null is thereafter referred to as a 'putative,' or 'supposed,' marriage. It was a marriage contracted inviolation of an impediment, or with a condition or defective consent, but entered into in good faith on the part of one or both of the contracting parties."

Actually, that isn't true either, since elsewhere in the book he points out that it's possible for both parties to a subsequently-annulled marriage to have entered into it in bad faith, but that's a different question. See page 176: "The Church is really declaring, in hindsight, that on the day of the wedding specific factors, such as defective consent, problems regarding its legitimate manifestation or the ineligibility of the bride or groom, prevented the two individuals from bringing about a valid marriage--as had been presumed. . . . The tribunal can only declare whether or not it has been proven that the marriage was invalid from the start."

The whole point of the above is that a "declaration of nullity" (a term which the author prefers to "annulment") declares that in fact the marriage never existed. Some people, possibly including one or both of the "putative" or "supposed" spouses, just thought that it did -- but they were mistaken.

If the marriage never existed, then the children cannot have been conceived or born in wedlock. The inevitable logical conclusion is that some people, possibly including one or both of their parents, just "supposed" that they were.

The declaration doesn't affect the status of the children under secular law. That's true enough. If there was a valid civil marriage, followed by a valid civil divorce, the children are legitimate for purposes of inheritance, etc. However, the canon law statement that they are "legitimate" is a purely arbitrary declaration (aimed at outcome, the result that the system wants to achieve, rather than input, the nature of the procedure being carried out).

If these two pages are so inaccurate, I become suspicious about the rest of the book.

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