Pope Francis announces most radical annulment reforms in centuries

(The Christian Science Monitor) The Vatican announced Tuesday the most radical reforms to Roman Catholic marriage annulment procedures in centuries.

In two documents, titled “The Lord Jesus, the Gentile Judge” and “The Meek and Merciful Jesus,” Pope Francis reaffirmed traditional church teaching on “the indissolubility of the sacred bond of marriage” but simplified the process of annulment, which many have for years considered cumbersome, costly, and out of reach for most Catholics.

The pope’s announcement comes about a year after he commissioned a study of the best ways to speed up the annulment process and make it more accessible, so that Catholics who sought annulments could find justice—and about 250 years since the last substantive changes to annulment law were made.