Pope further implements marriage annulment reforms in Italy

Pope Francis on Friday issued a motu proprio to set up a new commission to verify and implement new rules for marriage annulment cases in Italian dioceses. 

This enhances the motu proprio Mitis Iudex Dominus Iesus (The Gentle Judge, our Lord Jesus) for the Latin-rite church and Mitis et misericors Iesus (The Meek and Merciful Jesus) for the Eastern Catholic churches that Francis issued in 2015 to streamline the process for obtaining marriage annulments.

It reformed sections of canon law dealing with requests for the declaration of the nullity of a marriage and addressed complaints that the proceedings in marriage tribunals were too cumbersome, complicated, and expensive.

The documents did away with an automatic appeal of all decisions, charged diocesan bishops with responsibility for handling some cases and instituted an abbreviated process for cases where the evidence is clear and uncontested.

The latest motu proprio will help the implementation of the reforms in Italy, so as to give "new impetus" to those rules.

The commission set up at the Roman Rota (a tribunal handling mostly marriage cases) with the participation of a bishop of the Italian Bishops' Conference aims to "support the Churches in Italy to welcome the reform". 

Pope Francis pointed out that the bishop has the power to judge marriage cases, and stressed that "the judicial ministry" of the bishop "by its very nature postulates closeness between the judge and the faithful", thus giving rise to "at least an expectation on the part of the faithful" to be able to turn to their bishop's court "according to the principle of proximity".

The pope in his new motu proprio reiterates that although diocesan bishops are permitted to have access to other tribunals, this faculty should be considered an exception and therefore every bishop "who does not yet have his own ecclesiastical tribunal, must seek to erect it or at least work to ensure that this becomes possible".  

He said that the equal distribution of human and economic resources to the dioceses for the exercise of judicial power will be a stimulus and help to individual bishops to put the reform of the marriage annulment process into practice.

Pope Francis said he already indicated in his address to the Italian Bishops' Conference in 2019 that "the reform drive of the canonical marriage annulment process -- characterized by proximity, speed, and gratuitousness of the procedures -- necessarily passes through a conversion of structures and persons".

Hence to encourage this "conversion", six years after the new norms came into force, the pope set up a Pontifical Commission at the Tribunal of the Roman Rota, to verify and help all the particular Churches in Italy.  

The commission will be chaired by the Dean of the Rota, Father Alejandro Arellano Cedillo, and will include the two Rota judges, Vito Angelo Todisco and Davide Salvatori, and Bishop Vincenzo Pisanello of Oria.

The commission is tasked "to ascertain and verify the full and immediate application of the reform" in Italian dioceses. 

It will “suggest to the same dioceses what is considered appropriate and necessary to support and help the fruitful continuation of the reform, so that the Churches in Italy may show themselves to the faithful as generous mothers, in a matter closely linked to the salvation of souls", which has also been encouraged by the Extraordinary Synod on the Family.

The commission will also draw up a detailed report on the application of the new rules on marriage annulment cases in Italy.

In 2019, Pope Francis addressing members of the Italian bishops’ conference, said he was he was “saddened” that many of their dioceses had not applied the 2015 reforms he ordered to make the marriage annulment process quicker, more pastoral and less expensive.