It’s actually prominent enough you to definitely cannon laws provides detailed information for the what a good tribunal is supposed to do when a beneficial respondent chooses to disregard the fresh summons listed above. Canon 1592.step 1 confides in us whenever an effective respondent is summoned however, fails to look, and you can does not deliver the courtroom having an adequate reason behind so it incapacity, the fresh new judge should be to say that people absent, additionally the instance would be to move on to the brand new decisive judgment.
You don’t need a degree in canon law to appreciate that this is only common sense. After all, there are one or two parties to a marriage-nullity case-and if one party doesn’t feel like cooperating, that doesn’t mean justice is automatically going to be denied to the other! So the marriage tribunal will simply proceed without any input from the respondent. It will base its decision on the evidence collected from the petitioner and his witnesses. So what Craig’s pastor and the tribunal official told him is correct. If Craig can show that (for example) his own consent at the time of the wedding was defective-a concept that has been discussed numerous times here in this space, in “Contraception and Marriage Validity” and “Canon Law and Fraudulent ong many others-then the marriage is invalid regardless of whether his ex-wife submits her own evidence or not.