The Canon Law Society of America has published the first English-language commentary on norms the Vatican issued last year for the church's marriage annulment process.

"'Dignitas Connubii': Norms and Commentary" is co-written by German canonist Klaus Ludicke and Msgr. Ronny E. Jenkins, an associate general secretary of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops who also teaches canon law at The Catholic University of America.

"Dignitas Connubii," Latin for "the dignity of marriage," is the title of a normative handbook of marriage tribunal procedures issued in January 2005 by the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts, in consultation with several other Vatican agencies.

The norms encourage church courts to work efficiently and reach decisions on marriage cases as expeditiously as possible but insist that no shortcuts be taken in the serious matter of determining whether a marriage is invalid.

The Catholic Church does not permit divorce or the dissolution of a valid, consummated sacramental marriage between two baptized Christians. But it has detailed norms and court procedures for determining whether an apparent marriage was not really valid at the time it was contracted.

The new commentary includes the text of the 2005 norms in the original Latin with an English translation in a parallel column. Each norm is followed by a commentary expanding on its meaning and relating it to other church laws and official judicial interpretations of those laws.

The 556-page hard-bound text costs $60 and can be ordered through the Canon Law Society of America.

Msgr. Jenkins translated the German commentary published last year by Ludicke and expanded on it in some areas of particular significance or where the norms address some of the particular circumstances facing tribunals in the United States or other parts of the English-speaking world. In the course of collaboration on the translation, Ludicke also added new material not found in his original German commentary.

Msgr. Jenkins told Catholic News Service that the process for assessing whether a marriage was invalid has some significant differences from other trial procedures in church courts, and canon lawyers had been awaiting Vatican norms specifically addressing those procedures ever since the new Code of Canon Law was issued in 1983.

He said when the 1917 Code of Canon Law came out, church lawyers had similar concerns, which were addressed in 1936 by a similar set of comprehensive norms, called "Provida Mater" ("the provident mother"), specifically detailing the rules for handling marriage cases.

The introduction to the commentary notes that civil laws also make provision for determining that a presumed marriage was null in some cases, but few people take that route in civil law because in most civil societies today "divorce is seen as the easier manner to end one marriage and begin another."

It also notes that some people have difficulty with the idea of the church determining that their marriage was null from the start because they feel it amounts to a denial of their experience of being a married couple and a denial of the legitimacy of their children.

In the church's law, however, "those who exchange consent in good faith are presumed to have entered a valid marriage, a presumption that lasts until the nullity of the marriage is established," the introduction says.

"The church does not hold that children born of putative marriages are illegitimate," it adds. "Indeed, Canon 1137 states the contrary."

---CNS