Annulment

An annulment is a declaration by a Catholic marriage tribunal that a particular marriage, despite its civil validity, was never a sacramentally valid marriage from its beginning. The process examines specific canonical grounds (force, fear, defect of consent, prior bond, and others) and is required before a Catholic remarriage in many cases involving a previously married spouse. Annulment is theologically distinct from civil divorce: divorce dissolves a civil contract; annulment declares that the sacramental marriage was never present. The process commonly takes six months to two years in US dioceses.