A New Procedural Law For Marriage Case Wrenn Summary

Introduction In “A New Procedural Law for Marriage Cases,” Lawrence Wrenn reviews the steps in the initiative of Pope St. John Paul II pertaining to the renewal of the nullity process. Wrenn’s article was published prior to the promulgation of the final of the Instruction: Instruction to be Observed by Diocesan and Interdiocesan Tribunals in Handling Causes of the Nullity of Marriage _Dignitas Connubii_ by the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts. Consequently, Wrenn’s article is limited to his evaluation of the Instructions origins, and the first and second drafts. Wrenn clearly reviews the foundations of the Holy Father’s concerning the nullity process and then discusses the _Primum Schema_ at length and finds that it “insufficiently

Wrenn begins by presenting Pope St. John Paul II’s concerns regarding the nullity process, beginning with a summary of an address to the Roman Rota in 1996 outlining the ways in which marriage cases are fundamentally different than contentious cases. According to Wrenn, Pope John Paul II’s basic thesis was that “the procedures to be followed in adjudicating marriage cases should be and in fact, are _sui generis_...”^4^ and quotes the Pope’s call for “corrective measures by the legislator.”^5^ Wrenn references his own comments “in the first CLSA commentary on the 1983 code,” stressing that when “neither the respondent nor the defendant opposes an annulment (it) should be considered not as contentious, but simply as declarative of a person’s official status in the Catholic community.”^6^ He describes the differences that result from each categorization. “If…the point of a marriage case is to determine whether a person is married or single ‘in the eyes of the Church’…’the trial can be conducted with a minimum of formalities, a maximum of privacy and confidentiality, and a suitable, discretionary defense of the marriage bond. …if…a marriage case is automatically considered a contentious matter… then legal formalities and publicity will be increased and the defense of the bond will tend to be

This was a significant revision, “drastically different from the _Primum Schema_.^22^ Called the the _Novissimum Schema_, this draft was sent to the “dicasteries of the Holy See that had an interest in the matter” three years later, in 1999.^23^ According to Wrenn, if it had been promulgated, it would have introduced “significant changes into the procedures followed by many tribunals in the adjudication of marriage cases” as this much shorter and complex document simplified the nullity process.^24^