November 8, 2026, 12:00 PM
In today’s bulletin (and for the next several weeks) you’ll see a notice from the Tribunal Office in Scranton. It talks about annulments. They’ve updated and simplified the process for requesting the annulment of a marriage. Updated and simplified so much that the work is easier, it’s located online and you do most of it yourself! Certainly, we hope that these changes will help individuals and couples find their way to resolving the sad business of a failed marriage and to moving toward greater participation in the Church’s sacramental life.
Let me say a few words about the two different types of annulments. (This difference becomes important when you need to figure out which form you need to use.)
First, there’s a formal annulment. That’s what you need if your former marriage was already recognized by the Church. That includes marriages of Catholics in a Catholic Church with a priest or deacon receiving your vows. That also includes marriages of nonCatholics as they follow the laws of their own religious traditions. In either case, the Church wants to see if there was something that made that marriage incomplete—a lack of maturity, pressure to marry, a lack of understanding about what fidelity meant.
Then, we come to the Lack of Canonical Form annulment. Remember, all sacraments involved matter and form. In baptism, the matter is the water in which the person in immersed or which is poured over the person. Use some alternative liquid and you don’t have a baptism. The form are the words largely taken from St Matthew’s gospel: “I baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” Use some other words and you don’t have a baptism.
In marriage the matter is the life of a woman and a man. The form (unless some special permission has been given by the Bishop) is the set of vows spoken in the presence of a deacon, priest or bishop. If the form is different—vows spoken in the presence of another sort of officiant (be it the judge, the JP, the mayor, the ship’s captain or your favorite cousin) you don’t have a sacrament.
In the Lack of Canonical Form annulment, the Church wants to see if a Catholic was married “outside of the Church.” It largely comes down to finding the baptismal and marriage certificate. If the baptism’s Catholic and the marriage wasn’t, we annul on that basis only. That’s mostly an issue of paperwork.
Please also note that you don’t have to spend a lot of time and energy talking to the priest. The parish staff will direct you to the Tribunal office (and most of this will happen on your computer or phone). We’re glad to help in any way we can. And remember why the Church does this. We have been listening to the words of Jesus Christ about marriage and divorce for nearly two thousand years. “What God has made one, let no one tear asunder” are, in fact, challenging words. But, they remain the words of our God and our Savior. We’re left with the responsibility of balancing both the mercy of Christ and the truth that Christ speaks.
Fr. McCreary
SCRANTON TRIBUNAL NEWS: The forms used to petition for marriage annulments have recently been updated and placed online. The petition for a declaration of marriage nullity due to lack of canonical form has also been updated to a single page and placed online. These easy-to-use and simplified forms may be completed on your personal computer and printed before being brought to a priest or deacon to be notarized. Currently, no fees are attached to these petitions. Visit the Office of the Tribunal on the Diocese of Scranton website to see the new paperwork and the information needed to petition for an annulment after a divorce: www.dioceseofscranton.org/directory/offices/diocesan-tribunal. Your parish priest or deacon can assist you in beginning the annulment process. You may also call the Tribunal with your canon law questions, 570-207-2246.
