Wednesday, March 21, 2007 Cebu to host convention on church laws
FOR the first time in over a decade, the Archdiocese of Cebu will host the 15th national convention of the Canon Law Society of the Philippines (CLSP) next month.
Judicial vicar Fr. Raul Go said Cebu is home to an archdiocese that is one of the oldest and biggest in the country.
“Cebu is very strategic to the priests in Visayas and Mindanao,” explained Go, who is this year’s convention chairman.
Guest speaker Msgr. Cormac Burke, a retired judge of the Roman Rota, can also deliver his lectures in a much bigger place on April 16 to 19.
The Roman Rota, which is based in Vatican City, is the equivalent of the Supreme Court in the Philippines.
Last year, the convention was held in Pansol, Calamba, Laguna where topics discussed focused on the religious institutes and consecrated life of the religious.
This year’s convention will be held at the Sacred Heart Center on D. Jakosalem St., Cebu City where Burke will help the archdiocesan matrimonial tribunal and canon lawyers update their ways in investigating and judging marriage nullification.
Update
“There are already existing grounds for measuring a valid and non-valid marriage. But we have to update our ways of investigating the extent of the reasons in marriage annulments to better our judgment,” said Go.
About 90 members of the CLSP will attend the convention.
“Though the CLSP has about 180 members, only about half are regularly attending the convention because other members are either out of the country or too old to travel,” said Go.
Majority of the members are priests working in their respective diocesan tribunals or chanceries. About 10 percent of the members are not priests.
The convention will also address the rising number of cases of marriage nullification in the country.
Go estimated an average of 80 petitions filed for marriage annulment in the Catholic Church in Manila in a year and 40 in Cebu. “In small archdioceses, petitions filed could range from one to 10 in a year,” he said.
It could take an average of two years for the church to address such petitions, depending on the availability of the witnesses and the petitioner.
Process
The petition must be also be approved through two decisions from the church, one from the archdiocese where the petitioner belongs and one from the Archdiocese of Manila, said Go.
If the local archdiocese approves the case but the Archdiocese of Manila assesses it as weak, the case will go as far as the Vatican City for another study or the petitioner will have to take a stronger issue on the case.
Another expected output of the convention is a position paper by the CLSP on an issue related to marriage annulment. (NRC)
