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Dignitas Connubii: Greater Fairness in Declarations of Nullity?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 April 2008

Helen Costigane
Helen Costigane
Affiliation:
Lecturer in Canon Law, Heythrop College, London
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Extract

Shattered Faith is the story of Sheila Rauch Kennedy's marriage and divorce from Congressman Joe Kennedy, a member of one of the best known families in the United States of America. Married in 1979 in a Catholic Church, Mr Kennedy was a Catholic while Mrs Kennedy remained an Episcopalian. Twin sons were born in 1980 and baptised as Catholics, with godparents from both Christian churches. The marriage began to unravel when Mr Kennedy was elected to Congress. Separation in 1989 was followed by divorce because of ‘irreconcilable differences’. In 1993, Mrs Kennedy received notification from the Metropolitan Tribunal of the Archdiocese of Boston, informing her of the petition lodged by her former husband to have the marriage declared null on the grounds of lack of due discretion of judgement (though whose lack of due discretion is not made clear). Shocked, and while willing to acknowledge that the marriage had failed (evidenced in a divorce), she could not accept that it had never existed as a sacrament.

Type
Comment
Information
Ecclesiastical Law Journal , Volume 10 , Issue 2 , May 2008 , pp. 191 - 197
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical Law Society 2008

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References

1 SR Kennedy, Shattered Faith (Dublin, 1997), p 11.

2 See the 1983 Code of Canon Law, Canon 34, for the definition and force of an ‘instruction’.

3 The document was requested by papal mandate and prepared in collaboration with a number of Roman dicasteries, following consultation with the Conferences of Bishops, which affords it considerable weight.

4 Kennedy, Shattered Faith, p 15.

5 K Lüdicke and RE Jenkins, Dignitas Connubii: norms and commentary (Washington, DC, 2005), p 130.

6 Kennedy, Shattered Faith, p 9.

7 Quoted in JP Beal, JA Coriden and TJ Green (eds), New Commentary on the Code of Canon Law (New York, NY, 2000), p 1646.

8 Kennedy, Shattered Faith, p 24.

9 Ibid, p 18.

10 Ibid, p 18.

11 See Canon 1435, which says that a Defender is to be a cleric or a person of good repute, with a qualification in canon law (doctorate or licentiate), and ‘of proven prudence and zeal for justice’.

12 Canon 1432.

13 Kennedy, Shattered Faith, p 24.

14 Canon 1432.

15 Kennedy, Shattered Faith, p 121.

16 Canon 1434 says that the Defender's submission has equal weight with other submissions; assurance is given on impartiality, in that the Defender can never be the promoter of justice in the same case (Canon 1436); one with a personal interest in the case can be ruled out (Canons 1448, 1449); the Defender has the right to submit propositions upon which the party is to be questioned (Canon 1533), and can ask questions through the judge (Canon 1561); the report of experts may be communicated to the Defender (Canon 1579); the Defender has the right to be present at the examination of parties (Canon 1678), and has the right to respond to every reply of the parties (Canon 1603).

17 Allocution, 1988.

18 A Stankiewicz, ‘Some indications about Canon 1095 in the instruction Dignitas Connubii’ in PM Dugan and L Navarro (eds), Studies on the Instruction Dignitas Connubii (Montreal, 2006), p 39.

19 Kennedy, Shattered Faith, p 71.

20 Ibid, p 185.