Nulidade matrimonial: a Igreja Católica diante dos casamentos que fracassaram

Abstract

Marriage is known as a symbolic ritual and a psychological necessity that has existed for thousands of years and has been accompanying the development of humanity since then. The Catholic understanding regarding marriage marked the Western culture, and even though it was extremely demanding, it was for many centuries the only one considered socially acceptable. With the advent of postmodern society, where effective bonds have become more fragile, the Catholic proposal of indissoluble marriage presents itself as an exception, in addition of being less understood and accepted. At the same time, cases of marital separation are multiplied, followed by new relationships. The impact of divorce is felt in a peculiar way by the Catholic Church because of its historically stricter stance in the understanding of marriage. Divorces and new relationships place the Catholic faithful in an irregular position within the institution with a consequent feeling of exclusion and marginalization. The problem has been faced by the Catholic Church with the development of a peculiar practice that seeks to analyze the validity of marriages celebrated by its faithful and the possible declaration of Nullity: those are the Canonical Marriage processes carried out in the Ecclesiastical Courts. The objective of this research was to verify how the Catholic Church has responded to the reality of the numerous marriages that failed and to address the main psychological and religious questions manifested by the individuals involved in the processes of declaration of Nullity of Marriage. The methodological approach used started from a descriptive research in the records of the cases of Marriage Annulment carried by the Interdiocesan Marriage Tribunal of Aparecida (TEIA) where I work as an expert psychologist. Thirty five cases were selected from the city of São José dos Campos – SP. It was chosen cases entered the Court in 2014, and marriage duration up to five years. We work with the hypothesis that those cases, by their own dynamics, also have a therapeutic character, because it inevitably puts the person in contact with his/her history. Those processes are therefore an excellent opportunity that can favor self-knowledge. We also verified the most frequent psychological causes of failure of marriages among the cases