Fees for annulments barely cover judicial costs, says official of Vatican tribunal
November 18, 2014
A Vatican official has cautioned against assuming that all Church tribunals will stop collecting fees for annulment cases.
“Pope Francis did not say that procedures for the eventual declaration of nullity must be free,” wrote Msgr. Piero Amenta, a prelate auditor of the Roman Rota. The Pope has raised the possibility of abolishing fees, and some dioceses have already taken that step. But at the October meeting of the Synod of Bishops, the question was left undecided.
Msgr. Amenta supported the Pope’s insistence that marriage tribunals should not be motivated by financial issues. He said, however, that “it is not true that ecclesiastical tribunals make profits over wedding woes.”
The Vatican official reported that at the Roman Rota, more than half (53%) of all cases are handled with fees, and in the remaining cases the fee is only a token contribution toward the actual costs of the judicial process.
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