What God has joined together : the annulment crisis in American Catholicism / Robert H. Vasoli.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 239-247) and index.

Profaning marriage -- Winds of change -- Building on the groundwork -- The new jurisprudence -- Psychologizing annulment -- Systematic abuse pf psychology -- Promoting the blueprint -- Screening and docketing cases -- Tribunal personnel -- Respondents and the right of defense -- Appellate review.

"The United States is home to only 6% of the world's Catholics, Robert Vasoli points out, but it now accounts for 75% of all Church annulments, two-thirds of which are granted on ostensibly psychological grounds. The real scandal, though, is not simply the numbers, but that Church marriage courts annul thousands of marriages that are actually valid according to Catholic teaching. Drawing on considerable research, the author details precisely how these courts let divorced Catholics - and many non-Catholics as well - bypass Catholic teaching and law. The result has been a tidal wave: in 1968, the American Church granted fewer than 600 annulments; today it hands out more than 60,000 a year. But Rome has not smiled on the performance of U.S. tribunals: of those psychological annulments appealed to the Roman Rota (the Vatican's highest marriage tribunal), more than 90% are overturned." "This revealing look at annulment weaves painstaking analysis with a wealth of evidence as it illuminates the degree to which the U.S. Church has gone its own way since Vatican II on what constitutes valid marriage."--Jacket.