SPANISH ecclesiastical courts are being urged by the Vatican to exercise more restraint in their granting of marriage annulments.
Rome is calling for more strictness in Spain as the number of annulled marriages in the country rises to more than 1,000 a year.
The Vatican's message to the church in Spain to go easy on annulments is somewhat ironic, however, since at the same time a recent edict from the Vatican itself urges divorced Catholic couples to "regularise" their situation; that is, to get themselves out of a state of mortal sin by annulling their previous marriages and sanctifying their current unions with church ceremonies "as God dictates".
Church commentators in Spain explain the Vatican's two faced policy on annulments thus: first Rome wants to get "fallen" Catholics back into the flock by whatever means, annulments included second, it wants to head off criticism of what's being called the "Catholic divorce" by seeming to make annulment less of an option.
An unwelcome spotlight has recently been shone on the whole subject of annulments with the publication of the book The Lost Faith by Sheila Rauch, whose 12 year marriage to one of the US's Kennedy clan was annulled against her wishes.
Ms Rauch has lambasted the "Catholic divorce" and hit out at the hypocrisy of the Catholic Church in the US which, she says, is doing nothing to protect either the sanctity of marriage or those who do not want their unions declared null and void. Three quarters of all marriage annulments take place in the United States.
The Spanish, too, have taken advantage of the lax church tribunals in the US. In 1971 Pope Paul VI granted certain dioceses power to annul marriages of expatriates, and Spanish lawyers were quick to set themselves up in New York to take advantage of this decree.
Spanish ecclesiastical courts were implicated in the racket since annulments granted abroad still had to be ratified in Spain.
But with an increasing number of new grounds for annulment being recognised by the church, the Spanish now have no need to resort to legal trickery.
A new canon has so many loop holes in it that it is known in church circles as "the colander". So that whereas it was once the criticism that it was only the rich famous or influential who were able to secure an annulment, now anyone who wants to can get in on the act. And the price is cheap, too.
In Spain the basic cost of a sentence is around £250, and even this fee is means related.
Sixty per cent of annulments in Spain are granted on grounds of emotional immaturity at the moment of the marriage; that is, it counts for nothing even where a person has been married for 30 years or more if he or she can prove to the church court that at the time of the ceremony they were not able to take on the responsibilities of marriage.
According to a member of the Spanish Rota (church court for ecclesiastical and secular causes), Dr Feliciano Gil de las Heras, it is in relation to this area of annulments that the Vatican has urged more cautious sentences.
But by far the most important contributing factor to the increase in annulments in Spain is that the church simply does not have the same degree of power it once had and ordinary people are therefore no longer afraid of church tribunals.
What's more, Spain is the only country in the world which has an ecclesiastical tribunal which judges in the third instance, that is, if the two previous tribunals cannot reach a majority verdict. This privilege was granted to them in 1771 by Pope Clement XIV and means that the final decision does not have to be referred back to Rome as with all other countries.
Ironically, annulments are probably popular in Spain precisely because people do still want church weddings, even if it is the second or third time around.
The marriage rate in Spain might be the lowest in the EU; but those who are still taking vows want the full works. The evidence is that they're more than happy to take advantage of that canonical colander, whose holes just seem to be getting bigger.