‘Til Decree Do Us Part

Ottawa Archbishop Marcel Gervais’s entreaty bounced from pulpit to pulpit across the country when he told politicians to remember that the marriage of a man and woman is “unique” and something to be “praised and treasured.” That has been a recurring theme in the Roman Catholic bishop’s ongoing drive to derail Prime Minister Paul Martin’s plan to legalize same-sex unions. And like Gervais, his colleagues in the Church have spared no rhetorical flourish to exalt the sanctity of traditional marriage. “Catholics,” intoned the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops in a submission to the Supreme Court last year, “treat marriage as both a vocation and a sacrament, the celebration of the sacred commitment . . . between a man and a woman, which is at the heart of family life as it is . . . the central locus of responsibility for the rearing and education . . . of each new generation of citizens.”

Fine words. But do the bishops really practise what they preach? Not according to many disillusioned Catholics whose faith has been shattered by their bitter experience with the Church’s secretive marriage-annulment process. They accuse the bishops of conspiring to obliterate thousands of the traditional unions it professes to hold sacred, setting up a tribunal system that gives short shrift to those who dare defend the validity of their marriages, and encouraging ex-spouses to invent bogus grounds to justify annulment. “People who believe their marriage is valid are not given proper representation, are not given a chance to exercise their rights and are often branded as troublemakers,” said Philip Gray, a Catholic canon lawyer from Ohio who has represented people caught up in annulment proceedings in both Canada and the United States. “This approach not only bastardizes the judicial process, it also attacks the very institution of marriage.”

Given the eagerness with which Catholic officials tried to expedite the annulment of her thirty-five-year marriage, Pat MacLeod believes the Church has no credibility in portraying itself as a champion of traditional marriage. “Absolutely not,” the feisty, sixty-seven-year-old Ottawa grandmother snaps. “What do they know about heterosexual marriage?” In choosing to criticize the process, which she describes as “emotional rape,” MacLeod is something of a pioneer. Annulments are usually granted only after couples legally divorce, and it’s hard to find Catholics such as MacLeod who are willing to discuss their experience. They are often sworn to secrecy and find it embarrassing to discuss the grounds, usually psychological, on which annulments are granted.

In the US, the veil of secrecy was pierced in 1997 by Sheila Rauch Kennedy’s book Shattered Faith, which described her battle to prevent the annulment of her marriage to congressman Joseph Kennedy. It sparked a furious debate over the annulment “scandal” in the US, where thousands of marriages are nullified each year. In going public, MacLeod hopes to spark a similar debate in Canada, where 98 percent (and 2,800 a year on average over the past twenty years) of annulment petitions are approved. “I want other respondents to know. . . if they really want to defend their marriages they should get themselves an advocate in order to fight back. Because as a respondent, if you don’t fight back, the cards are really stacked against you,” said MacLeod. “Until somebody speaks out and shows it up for what it really is, they’re going to continue . . . to abuse people this way.”

MacLeod was raised in a Catholic family, schooled by nuns, and taught to believe that when a couple is joined in matrimony their earthly bond is indissoluble. Any Catholic who divorces and remarries is, in the Church’s eyes, a public adulterer not entitled to receive communion or take confession. It was with that appreciation for the solemnity of marriage that Pat, a twenty-four-year-old nurse, wed Alistair MacLeod, a twenty-seven-year-old dentist, in a Catholic church outside of Glasgow, blessed by a nuptial mass presided over by a bishop. The pair eventually migrated to Canada where they raised two children. Unhappily, the MacLeods’ thirty-five-year union ended in divorce in 1998. Three years later, MacLeod’s ex-husband informed her that he intended to remarry and would petition the Church for an annulment.

At the time, MacLeod had only a vague idea of what that would entail. She knew annulment was the only way divorced Catholics could remarry with the Church’s blessing, but to receive it they had to prove that their original vows were invalid. And she assumed annulments were granted for only the most egregious reasons, such as non-consummation or mental incapacity.

MacLeod insists she had no objection to her ex-husband remarrying, but rejected the notion that his first marriage had to be declared non-existent in order to facilitate the second. She couldn’t fathom how her thirty-five-year marriage, entered into by mature, intelligent adults, could be deemed invalid or how her children could be rendered the progeny of an invalid union, which in her eyes meant illegitimacy.

She was quickly disabused of such quaint notions. Marriages that deviate from the Church’s prescribed form (for instance, those not conducted by a priest in the presence of two witnesses) can be annulled with little fuss. But most, like the MacLeod annulment, must move through a formal process.

In Canada, the Church has set up regional marriage tribunals to investigate and rule on annulment petitions. Their rulings are automatically reviewed by the Ottawa-based Catholic National Appeal Tribunal, and can be appealed to the Roman Rota, the Holy See’s marriage court. Each tribunal is presided over by a judicial vicar and employs the services of a “defender of the bond,” charged with presenting all arguments against nullifying the marriage. Both petitioner and respondent are entitled to an advocate (essentially legal counsel with expertise in Catholic canon law) are given an opportunity to testify and must supply the names of witnesses familiar with their married life.

MacLeod’s first mistake was in assuming the duration of her marriage was relevant. It’s a common misperception, according to Monsignor Roch Pagé, president of the Canadian Canon Law Society and professor at Ottawa’s St. Paul University, one of only two North American institutions that confer degrees in Church law. In fact, it’s irrelevant whether a marriage has lasted thirty days or thirty years. The only relevant factor is whether at the time they exchanged wedding vows the couple were capable of giving proper consent. If not, the marriage can be nullified.