Understanding Marriage Validity and the Church’s Role
I, take you, to be my lawfully wedded… I promise to be true to you in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health. I will love you and honor you all the days of my life.
Weddings are celebrations filled with beauty, family, traditions, and hope for a new life. The spouses promise mutual fidelity, openness to children, and to seek each other’s good, for the rest of their earthly lives. But what happens when this marriage falls apart? What constitutes grounds for a declaration of marriage nullity? How long does the process take and how much does it cost? Will I have to confront my ex-spouse-spouse? At Catholic International University, we are offering an answer to these questions through our brand new course: Valid or Invalid? An Introduction to Marriage in Canon Law, so that deacons, marriage ministers, and catechists of adults can offer accurate information to people earnestly seeking to put their lives back together after divorce.
Over eight weeks, we’ll study the sacrament of marriage, its unique basis in natural law. We will explore: who is capable of marriage? What constitutes integral marital consent? What does the valid and licit celebration of marriage require for Catholics and non-Catholics? How does an ecclesiastical marriage tribunal conduct its investigations? And finally, how can the Church help? This course seeks to demystify an unnecessarily obscure topic, making it fully accessible to the faithful.