Marriage annulments becoming less common in US: Why?

February 18, 2011

Surveying the difficulties that the American Catholic Church faces regarding marriages and annulments, John Allen notes in a Wall Street Journal column that the number of annulments has declined.

But why? It is not, Allen concludes, because diocesan tribunals are any less likely to declare a marriage null-- despite years of papal pleas to take the permanent bond seriously. Rather, it is because fewer American Catholic couples are bothering to marry in church, and fewer are bothering to seek an annulment before entering into a second marriage.

 

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Further information:

• The Vatican's Marriage Quandary (Wall Street Journal)