Bishop urges govt to recognize Church annulment of marriage

A HIGH-RANKING member of the Philippine clergy launched on Saturday a book that explored the possibility of civil courts accepting marriage annulments granted by the Church.

Auxiliary Bishop Nolly Buco of Antipolo, the judicial vicar of the National Tribunal of Appeals, a Church office that handles marriage nullity cases in the Philippines, released “Freeing Distressed Couples from Guilt: The Need for State Recognition of the Church’s Declaration of Marriage Nullity” at the Diocesan Shrine and Parish of Our Lady of the Abandoned in Marikina City.

Bishop Buco, who is also a Canon lawyer, noted that with the alarming number of estranged couples and un-annulled marriages “because civil marital annulment is tedious and expensive,” there is an urgent need for the State to recognize as valid the Church’s marriage nullity declaration.

He said the book dealt with an issue that needed to be addressed urgently “because of the current dismal reality that innumerable marital breakdowns are denied closure through civil annulment.”

Buco said this was due to two basic reasons: the procedure is long and tedious, and it is costly.

As a result, he said, a vast majority of the broken marriage populace in the country, particularly the poor, “are forced to remain estranged and un-annulled and thus perpetually entangled with guilt.”

The Philippine Constitution recognizes marriage to be the foundation of the State and mandates it to protect marriage as an “inviolable social institution.”

Buco said a marriage solemnized by the Church, therefore, should have not only canonical but civil effects as well.

He noted that significant reforms in the canonical procedure in marriage nullity cases have been introduced in the Church by Pope Francis, which “streamlined many of the steps involved in the nullity process,” one of which is granting the annulment in certain circumstances such as spousal abuse or when extramarital affairs have occurred.

Buco said as a priest and “pastor of souls,” he cannot simply ignore these “pitiful situations and leave these parties of conjugal misfortunate being cynical and embittered.”

“I have to stand alongside these troubled and distressed couples, take some weight off their burden, and free them from the bondage of guilt, and ascertain that their conscience is in place,” he said.

Buco, who also serves as the apostolic administrator of Catarman, said his book was a “simplified” or “abridged spinoff” of his doctoral thesis at San Beda University Graduate School of Law, “The State Recognition of the Canonical Declaration of Marriage Nullity: A Juridico-Processual Presumption.”

In her message, Pampanga 2nd district Rep. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo gave high praise to Bishop Buco for publishing his book on marital issues.

Arroyo said she supported the prelate’s advocacy through her House Bill 7960, also known as “An Act Recognizing the Civil Effects of Annulment, Declaration of Nullity, and Dissolution of Marriages by Canon Law and for Other Purposes.”

The bill recognizes the Catholic Church’s act of nullifying marriages as equal to that of the civil court’s authority to annul marital unions and cites five grounds for the dissolution of marriage.

The bill’s provisions have been incorporated in substitute House Bill 9350, which has passed committee level and is due for debate on the floor.

Arroyo said as a devout Catholic, she is against divorce.

“However, as a realist, I am aware that many Filipinos are living miserable lives as a consequence of having married the wrong person or of not being fit for marriage,” the former president said.

“I filed my bill cognizant that the annulment of these unhappy unions is the only means to free these individuals from loveless and unhappy marriages,” she added.

In the Antipolo diocese, Buco continues to serve as the judicial vicar, a post he held before becoming a bishop in 2018.

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