Pope Francis Simplifies Rules on Marriage Annulments

VATICAN CITY— Pope Francis has made it quicker and simpler for married Catholics to obtain annulments, the latest evidence of his conciliatory approach to family issues but one that has unsettled more conservative elements within the church.

The rules released by the Vatican on Tuesday, only the third major set of changes to the relevant church law in 2½ centuries, respond to widespread complaints that the annulment process, which can allow divorced Catholics to remarry in the church, is too lengthy and complicated.

One of the most significant changes resembles a temporary policy followed by U.S. bishops in the 1970s, which critics have said amounted to a form of “Catholic divorce.” That could heighten tensions between the pope and those bishops and laypeople who fear he has let talk of mercy blur church teaching on the indissolubility of marriage.

According to Kurt Martens, a professor of canon law at the Catholic University of America, the new rules introduce the equivalent of “no-fault divorce” into the church.

But according to Mark Gray, a senior research associate at the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University, the new rules are unlikely to boost the number of requests for annulments, which have been declining as people marry less often.

The Catholic Church doesn’t permit divorce. An annulment, technically known as a “declaration of nullity,” states that a given union was never a valid marriage. Potential reasons for nullity include bigamy or lack of consent, but also more complex conditions such as psychological immaturity.

The new rules, based on a year’s work by a papal advisory commission, eliminate the requirement that any annulment granted by a church court must be automatically reviewed by another set of judges.

U.S. bishops effectively suspended the requirement from 1972 to 1983, with critics saying it led to a loss of quality control. The process became a “rubber stamp,” Mr. Martens said, leading the Vatican to retract the concession.

The new rules also establish a new “fast-track trial,” to be judged by the local bishop, who can grant an annulment in less than two months. The current annulment process in the U.S. typically takes “between 12 to 18 months or longer,” according to the U.S. bishops’ conference.

Msgr. Alejandro W. Bunge, secretary of the panel that advised the pope, said at a Vatican news conference that the process actually lasts “no less than two, maybe five, and sometimes 10 years.”

The fast-track option would be available in cases where both parties agree to an annulment and where evidence for the invalidity of the marriage is especially strong.

The U.S. accounts for more than 40% of all annulment requests around the world, according to the Vatican’s latest statistical yearbook, for 2013. Mr. Gray says that reflects the “civic culture” of the U.S., where civil divorce is common, but notes that Americans don't receive annulments at a significantly different rates than other nationalities. The vast majority of cases that are pursued to a final judgment result in a declaration of nullity.

The new rules take effect Dec. 8, at the start of a special jubilee “year of mercy” that Pope Francis has called to reach out to troubled and alienated members of the church and to non-Catholics in need.

Last week, the pope announced he would make it easier during the year of mercy for the church to lift the excommunications of women who ask forgiveness for having had abortions. On Sunday, he called on all Catholic parishes in Europe to host one migrant family each as a way of preparing for the holy year.

The release of the new rules also comes less than a month before the Vatican hosts a representative meeting of the world’s bishops, known as a synod, to discuss family issues. An earlier session last October erupted in controversy over a proposal to make it possible for divorced and civilly remarried Catholics to receive Communion even without an annulment, which church law currently forbids.

The new annulment rules could influence debate at the synod, possibly consoling proponents of change even if they fail to persuade a majority of their peers to make it easier to receive Communion.

That could be one reason why Pope Francis, even though he has stressed the importance of consultation with his fellow bishops, didn’t wait before changing the rules on annulments.

The Rev. Pio Vito Pinto, chairman of the advisory panel on the new rules, said the pope was convinced that bishops would welcome the changes, partly because they enhance the bishop’s role in the annulment process.

The pope also decreed that the annulment process should be free, “insofar as possible, as consistent with the right and decent compensation of the employees of the tribunal,” who are often laypeople.

Church courts in the U.S. typically charge hundreds of dollars or more in fees, apart from the cost of the canon lawyers who represent the parties.

In his decree, the pope said “the impulse for reform is fed by the enormous numbers of the faithful who…are too often alienated from the juridical structures of the church.”

The changes are aimed at “speed” and “just simplicity,” so “the heart of the faithful who await the clarification of their own state not be long oppressed by the darkness of doubt,” he wrote.

In another sign of the new approach to family issues under Pope Francis, Cardinal Francesco Coccopalmerio, president of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts, told reporters that his office would be studying how church law should take account of civil laws “incompatible with the doctrine and discipline of the church.”

The example he offered, which he called “one of the simplest,” was on how to register the baptism of a child adopted by a gay couple.

Write to Francis X. Rocca at francis.rocca@wsj.com