Marriages annulled by Church may get legal recognition in Philippines

Marriages annulled by the Church will be recognized under Philippine law once a bill pending at the House of Representatives is passed. A bill legalizing Church-decreed annulment of marriages has been approved by the House committee on population and family relations. The panel chaired by Laguna Rep. Sol Aragones recently approved the still unnumbered bill substituting for House Bills No. 1629 and No. 3705, both of which sought the recognition of the civil effects of the Church annulment of marriages. (Read more: http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/952887/church-decreed-annulment-to-be-legalized#ixzz51ZLeMTJ8; Follow us: @inquirerdotnet on Twitter | inquirerdotnet on Facebook; Church-decreed annulment to be legalized By: DJ Yap - Reporter / @deejayapINQPhilippine Daily Inquirer / 07:50 AM December 16, 2017) All Christian denominations affirm that marriage is intended as a lifelong covenant between a man and a woman, but vary in their response to its dissolubility through divorce. The Roman Catholic Church treats all consummated sacramental marriages as permanent during the life of the spouses, and therefore does not allow remarriage after a divorce if the other spouse still lives and the marriage has not been annulled. However, divorced Catholics are still welcome to participate fully in the life of the church so long as they have not remarried against church law, and the Catholic Church generally requires civil divorce or annulment procedures to have been completed before it will consider annulment cases. Annulment is not the same as divorce - it is a declaration that the marriage was never valid to begin with. (Divorce in Christianity at www.bbc.co.uk retrieved 17 Aug 2015; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_and_divorce#cite_note-BBC-1)