Pope establishes commission to reform annulment process

This is huge.

From Vatican Radio: 

The Holy See Press Office on Saturday announced Pope Francis has decided to establish a Special Commission  for the study of the reform of the matrimonial processes in canon law. The decision was made on August 2, 2014.

This Committee will be chaired by Msgr. Pio Vito Pinto, Dean of the Roman Rota.  The other members are:  and will be composed of the following members: Cardinal Francesco Coccopalmerio, President of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts; Archbishop Luis  Francisco Ladaria Ferrer, SJ, secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith; Bishop Dimitri Salachas, Apostolic Exarch of the Greek Byzantine Catholic Church; Msgrs. Maurice Monier, Leo Xavier Michael Arokiaraj and Alejandro W. Bunge, Prelate Auditors of the Tribunal of the Roman Rota; the Rev. Fr.  Nikolaus Schöch, O.F.M., Substitute Promotor of Justice of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura; Fr. Konštanc Miroslav Adam, O.P., Rector of the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas (Angelicum); Fr. Jorge Horta Espinoza, O.F.M., Dean of the Faculty of Canon Law of the Pontifical University Antoniamum; and Prof. Paolo Moneta, formerly professor of Canon Law at the University of Pisa.

The work of the Commission will start as soon as possible and will have as its goal to prepare a proposal of reform of the matrimonial process, with the objective of simplifying its procedure, making it more streamlined, and safeguarding the principle of the indissolubility of matrimony.

AP notes: 

Pope Francis has created a commission to study how to safeguard what the church calls the everlasting bonds of marriage while streamlining annulment procedures.

Vatican teaching, while forbidding divorce, allows Catholics to have marriages annulled if church tribunals rule that the unions for specific reasons weren’t valid in the first place and thus are void.

Francis decided last month to establish a special commission to draft proposals on reforming church marriage law, but the Vatican only announced it on Saturday.

The timing appears linked to a major Vatican gathering of bishops next month on family issues and appeals to allow divorced Catholics who remarry to receive Communion.

The Vatican said the new commission will explore how to simplify the church’s complex annulments while safeguarding the principle that marriage is “everlasting.”