Annulments Procurator Tells the Story Behind the Data

Why are 90% of annulments granted by the Catholic Church? Can you trust the Tribunal’s decision? Why did annulment numbers increase?

On this episode, we interviewed Fr. Duesterhaus. He is a procurator/advocate and has presented many formal cases over the years. He gives an insider’s look at the annulment process. He also offers insight to the common reasons couples seek annulments.

Whether you are confused about the Catholic annulment process, unsure how the annulment of marriage works, wonder why the Church grants so many annulments, and want Catholic answers—this episode is for you! Fr. Duesterhaus gives a detailed explanation of how Catholic marriage annulments are evaluated, what makes a marriage invalid in the Church’s eyes, and how tribunals decide these sensitive cases.

Fr. Michael R. Duesterhaus was ordained to the priesthood for the Diocese of Arlington in 1991. He spent 27 years, Active and Reserves, as a Naval Chaplain, mostly serving with units of the U.S. Marine Corps. Father has presented over 125 formal cases before Tribunals of seven dioceses of the United States. He is the Parochial Vicar at St. John the Baptist Parish, Front Royal, Virginia.

Transcript:

Colleen (Host): Hello and welcome to Living a Culture of Life, a podcast by Human Life International. I’m your host, Colleen, and I’m joined today by Father Michael Duesterhaus. Welcome, Father. Thank you for coming out today.

Fr. Michael Duesterhaus: Good afternoon. It’s good to be here.

Colleen: We’re going to be diving into the topic of annulments again, because our last episode on that was very popular. So I wanted to give a little bit more of an insider look from the perspective of someone who’s been involved in this process many times.

Father, I was hoping you could share a little bit of your knowledge of the system. Could you just—yeah, just start by saying what your role was?

Fr. Michael Duesterhaus: Sure. So, Father Duesterhaus, a priest of the Diocese of Arlington. I am not a representative of the Diocese of Arlington—I’m giving my personal impressions from my pastoral ministry of over 33 years, which sadly has involved a lot of tribunal work.

And it wasn’t by plan. It was just by happenstance. When I was in seminary in the ’80s, Bishop Keating—God rest his soul—made it very clear that all the priests of the diocese would receive sufficient training in seminary, which we all did, so that we could at least assist in presenting and preparing cases.

And so the parishioner comes to you and says, “I have this situation.” You help them with the administrative stuff—gathering sacramental records, you usually do a cover letter to kind of organize it—and you submit the case. When it goes forward, you get named procurator-advocate. It’s a little like being a British barrister—it’s not so much Perry Mason—but you do actually go to court, and I’ll come back to that later.

For a variety of reasons, because of my assignments—and again, I spent 25 of my 33 years as a priest in uniform, a mixture of active duty and reserve—and so I have presented many cases. Many cases before the Diocese of Arlington, but also the Military Diocese. I’ve also presented cases in front of Baltimore. I did one—I wasn’t present—but I had to submit it down to San Juan, Puerto Rico. Had to do that in Spanish. I’ve done Chicago. I’ve submitted cases in Ottawa, Canada.

A lot of this had to do with—until only a few years ago—if a marriage took place in location A and most of the people still lived in location A, that’s where you would do the annulment.

Now, the process has always allowed that—let’s say you got married in Chicago, you’re now here in Virginia, and your ex-spouse is here in Virginia and there are witnesses here—our tribunal contacts their tribunal and says, “Hey, can we take the case?” And in most cases, it gets passed over.

One of the things Pope Benedict was concerned about was that there were certain tribunals—which will remain nameless (South America)—that just would not release cases. And there were other concerns about how these were being handled.

I had a case where both the petitioner (that’s the person who was asking for the annulment) and the respondent (the ex-spouse) and all the witnesses were here in Virginia—but they got married in Venezuela, where they grew up. And Venezuela would not release the case. So we had to submit everything down there. It took several years. Very difficult.

Well, Pope Benedict put many things in motion—and like any pontiff, they put things in motion, and then the next pope reaps it. So under Pope Francis, there were a lot of reforms to the code that were needed.

I don’t want to bore people, but I’m going to back up. Up until 1916, Church law was like British common law—it was not in one spot. You would cite an 18th-century decree, an 8th-century pope—it was all over the place. And so they tapped this one priest to codify it. He started codifying and got it done by 1917. It was the first time we had a Code of Canon Law.

We used that for many decades, but it had limitations. Again, it was one good priest who put that together—approved by the bishops, popes.

Most people don’t understand this, but when St. John XXIII called the Second Vatican Council, liturgy—which people talk about—was going to be on the list, but the main thing was reforming the Code of Canon Law, because there were gaps. It took them 20 years, several committees of dozens of people, to reform the Code of Canon Law. Most of it stayed the same. It came out in 1983, legally in 1984.

That helped organize the process, but even from ’84 on, there were amendments. Like anything in law, the jurisprudence develops. And so, especially the canons around how you investigate a marriage—they were kind of confusing. So they were totally rewritten and promulgated under Pope Francis, but that whole process was being done under Pope Benedict.

So let’s just talk about what we’re dealing with. I’m going to use a little story, okay? In the 1990s, I was on active duty as a chaplain, and I served almost all my career with the Marine Corps—which is why my life is so messed up. (No, I love my Marines!)

So I was in Okinawa, Japan. I was supposed to be there for 11 months… they kept me there for three years because the Marine Corps counts differently. One year, one year—if it wasn’t for 9/11, I’d probably still be in Japan.

Anyway, one of the biggest things in the Marine Corps is the Marine Corps Ball. The Marine Corps birthday is the 10th of November. The ball is… prom meets a wedding party meets a Filipino baptismal party—on crack. It’s this huge celebration. Everyone’s in uniform. There’s a historical presentation, a big sit-down dinner, there’s a speaker… and the big thing is, they bring out the cake. The commanding officer cuts a piece of the cake, and the oldest and youngest Marine present take a piece of it while they read the decree creating the Marine Corps in 1775. The oldest Marine takes a bite and passes it to the youngest Marine—the whole “passing on traditions” moment.

So in ’97, I was with 3rd Maintenance Battalion, supporting 3rd Force Service Support Group. They were having this great ball—everyone was having a great time. They wheeled out this cake, and it was three tiers. The bottom tier was two and a half by four feet. Then there was another tier, and another. It had 222 candles in it—big, four-bread candles—one for every year of the Marine Corps. Lit. And the Eagle, Globe, and Anchor—the symbol of the Marine Corps—was done in frosting. It was just a gorgeous cake. I thought, “This is beautiful. This is wonderful.”

They go over to it, and in the corner of the bottom, there were no candles—because that’s where they were going to cut it. So we had the cake. The cake goes back into the kitchen, then they bring out pieces for everyone to eat.

Now, not everyone gets their birthday ball on the 10th. They usually start around the 2nd, going up to the 10th. There’s kind of a lottery system. Everyone uses the same place—the base club, organized clubs, or between there and the chow hall. Anyway, there are like eight or nine Marine Corps balls in about a week and a day.

Well, it’s November 11th—Veterans Day. We kind of get a half-day off, get to sleep in. Some of my Marines definitely had to sleep in, because they had been partying. Anyway, I was out PT-ing, taking a run. And for some reason I thought, “I’m gonna cut a different path.” I cut behind the chow hall, up the steps to the club—and there was the cake. Being hosed down by a PFC.

It was all wood—with holes drilled in it to hold the candles in place. I went up, and the staff sergeant came out and said, “Chap, Chap—don’t say anything, don’t say anything.” And it’s like half the frosting had been washed off.

I said, “Staff Sergeant… I had eight balls in seven days. It took five Marines and myself eight hours just to make this artificial one.” And then the corner—there was a 9-by-9-inch cutout where they could cut the cake. So they’d put the real cake there, fix the frosting, and then roll that baby out.

But I said, “Staff Sergeant… I had a piece of cake two nights ago!”

“Oh, that’s sheet cake, Father. We can crank that out like no one’s business. We just slap it on.”

But I said, “There was a mark for a candle!”

“Oh, we just mark that with a candle stub. Just kind of stick it in… It was a whole psychological operation. It was a big SCOP!”

So, long story—but did you go to the ball? It was a beautiful ball. Did you see the cake? Gorgeous cake. It even had candles!  Did you go to the wedding? It was a beautiful wedding. Gorgeous. The bride looked great. They even had kids!

Later, you went through a wedding, went through a ceremony… and the annulment process is scraping the frosting off life to find out whether you had a real cake—or you just frosted a brick.

In order to have a true marriage… I brought some notes along, because I had to write a very long paper—I did my doctoral thesis on this, so I want to make sure I get the words right.

There’s a very specific definition: “in order for the sacrament of marriage to exist, there needs to be a baptized free man and a baptized free woman who freely exchange vows in the presence of the Church’s clergy and at least two witnesses, who intend to enter into a bond that is permanent, lifelong union, open to children, and exclusive in nature. The couple must also know each other well enough to form a family and to understand that marriage is not a private contract, but a public sacred covenant that exists not only to sanctify the couple, but also the Church as a whole.”

Okay? I had three three-credit graduate classes just on that sentence. Because you have to parse the whole thing out. So, a Catholic marriage is a Catholic in the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church says, we have the jurisdiction if one party believes the marriage not to be sacramental.

But the Church also claims every other marriage. So if a non-Catholic Christian comes to us and says, “I want to become Catholic. I was married before. I’ve remarried,” we claim we have jurisdiction over that. “I’m unbaptized. I’m from Pongo Pongo. I’ve come to America.”

Now—the Church doesn’t go around randomly investigating marriages. It’s not like, “Let’s go through the telephone book and look into their marriages.” Someone has to ask. Someone has to petition.

As you heard in the last podcast—and I think the gentleman’s a well-known writer, Mr. Clark—as an outsider looking in, it can be a very odd process. And I understand some of his criticisms. He wrote—I think I read one of his articles, it was like a précis of his book—“Why do we have to wait to have a decree of divorce…?”

Well, we’re in America. The Catholic Church does not have control over marriage. Now, until a couple of—15 years ago—the Church had total control over marriage in Ireland, because there was no civil divorce. You got married by the Church, and if you got an annulment, the Church took care of it. Catholic marriages were not legal in most states until the 1860s. They weren’t legal in Florida until the 1920s.

Colleen: Really?

Fr. Michael Duesterhaus: Oh yeah. There are some great history books. You’d go to Winchester—north of us—you’d have your nuptial Mass, and the wedding party would get into a carriage in 1890 with the priest and go up to the Potomac River, get on a barge, go over to Maryland where they were legal, and you would exchange the vows and then come back.

And interracial marriages weren’t legal in Virginia until 1968. Well, guess what—some Catholics ain’t white. And so, all these Catholic marriages had to go over to D.C. or Maryland to get married. A friend of mine growing up—his dad was Filipino—he got married in ’67 in D.C., even though he lived in Springfield, Virginia.

So, we have a situation where, civilly, until the marriage does not exist civilly, the Church cannot say it did not exist sacramentally. It’s a difficult situation to be in. I think it’s sad, because Mr. Clark makes it very clear, and the Catechism makes it very clear, that divorce is barely tolerated—only in the most extreme situations. But we live in an age that’s disposable, and people dispose of everything, including their marriages. So that kind of lays the groundwork for what’s going on here.

Most cases I’m dealing with—people come to me, and it’s already fallen apart. Early on, I always try to see if there could be some sense of reconciliation. In 99 out of 100 cases, I’m dealing with the wounded party. I’m dealing with a person who was abused—emotionally, personally—abandoned, many times taken advantage of. And then it’s years later, and they’re trying to get their lives together.

Those who are consoling their faith try to resolve those issues before they remarry. Many times they’ve already gone and remarried outside the Church. So now, they’re sitting in a civil marriage, cannot receive any of the sacraments, but they have a previous marriage that is valid until proven otherwise. And I have to take a shovel and dig into all this chaos.

When they talk about the numbers of annulments going up—it’s not an accurate picture, really. So, for example, back in the ’60s there was this comment made that, you know, Frank Sinatra got two annulments because he paid money. No—he had two civil marriages.

If you’re a Catholic and you got married outside the Church, I need five pieces of paper in four days, and I can declare that null.

Colleen: Is that because Catholics need to get married in a sacramental marriage within the Church?

Fr. Michael Duesterhaus: Exactly. So if it’s a civil marriage under a Justice of the Peace, then it wouldn’t be considered valid. So I just prove: you’re Catholic, civil marriage, civil divorce—it’s gone.

But that’s an annulment. There are cases called “ligamen,” which means the party you were married to had been married before. That’s where we get the word “ligament” from. That’s a documentary sort of thing. Boom.

Colleen: Yeah, I think that’s what happens in Brideshead, because Julia and Rex got married, and Rex had been married before. So that would’ve been a really easy annulment, because Rex was not free to marry—plus they got married outside the Church, and Julia was Catholic.

Fr. Michael Duesterhaus: Exactly. So, double grounds. But the basic standard formal case is—let’s stay with Catholics. A Catholic got married in the Church. What has to be demonstrated?

Now, the day after you got married, your spouse can become a heroin addict—that’s not going to nullify the marriage. A year after, the spouse becomes unfaithful—that doesn’t invalidate the marriage.

At the time of the exchange of vows, did you know each other well enough to form a family? You have to know about that person. And did you understand you were entering into a Sacrament? It’s a covenant. Like I said—open to children, permanent, exclusive.

Colleen: So is one reason you think there are more annulments these days because Catholics have fallen away and are getting married outside the Church, or they’re marrying people who were previously married?

Fr. Michael Duesterhaus: That’s part of it. But also, until the last five years, most of my annulments were Protestant marriages. I was dealing with Joe Protestant who wanted to marry Jane Catholic—and he had a previous bond. Or Joe wanted to become a Catholic.

I’m dealing currently with a case in my own parish where the person in question had two previous marriages. Both were very brief. One I was able to treat as ligamen. The other one has to be a formal case.

So again—we don’t just say, “Well, the marriage didn’t take place.” For a Catholic, the form has to be followed. Now, there are always exceptions. I’ve done a wedding in a hospital once—but it was an extreme case.

You’re supposed to get married in a physical Church. You can’t be married out in the parking lot or in a barn. There has to be a priest or deacon, and at the time when you exchanged the vows, did you understand what you were doing? Did you know who you were marrying?

When I was a young priest back in the ’90s, a lot of my annulments were of marriages from the early ’70s. One of the grounds is fraud and deception—that you hid something from your spouse.

Back then, it was often a serious drinking problem. “I didn’t really know you as a person.” I had one case where the bride in question had serious psychiatric problems—had been institutionalized twice in her teen years. The parents lied on the affidavits, saying there was no reason she shouldn’t get married. The marriage lasted all of seven weeks, because she totally fell apart. The guy thought she was this wonderful girl. The parents lied through their teeth. And when I did the investigation, they admitted, “Well, of course we lied. We wanted her out of the house. We found the first guy we could and dumped her on him.”

Then I’ve had cases—sadly, not annulments—but where I did a lot of weddings in my first assignment. I had this couple show up; they weren’t from my parish, but the bride’s aunt was. They seemed nice enough—mid-20s—but I got this odd vibe, and I started asking questions. Well, I was the fifth priest in seven weeks they had seen, and the other four said they wouldn’t marry them.

Both had serious mental health issues. Now—you can still get married, yeah. But I need a letter from your psychiatrist. And their psychiatrist wouldn’t write it. They said, “They don’t have what it takes to commit to a marriage.” It was very sad. Then I found out they had met in rehab, which is probably not the best place to find a spouse—just personal opinion.

Colleen: Yeah.

Fr. Michael Duesterhaus: But the problem is—see, so let’s critique the system again. I’m in the Diocese of Arlington, one of the leading tribunals. We dot our I’s and cross our T’s a thousand ways. The problem is we’re Americans. We’re very organized. We know how to do paperwork. So first off, we were the first nation to have standardized forms—instead of just everything longhand. Then we organized those standardized forms, and now we’ve digitized them. So you can go online and download a PDF and fill in all the blanks—crank out your petition, your narrative, your fact sheet—and boom boom boom boom, we can just crank it right out. And so, we’re very organized on that front. We also—all the annulments have already been written.

Colleen: What does that mean?

Fr. Michael Duesterhaus: Every decision declaring a marriage null is in that book. It’s a big book. And they’ve digitized all this. So when you get a decree saying your marriage is declared null, look one up—”Dear so-and-so,” and there’s the format of a letter, da-da-da. We’re going to send this to you—”mental impair…” All this is just—we have it all on computer. We just cut and paste and then we fit in the facts of this particular case.

Colleen: Interesting.

Fr. Michael Duesterhaus: So we’re very well organized, and everything’s done appropriately. I mean, this is a great system, right? But… we’re overly efficient, to put it nicely. And so it becomes a paper chase.

Also, we’re a minority diocese. So Joe comes to me—marriage is gone, there are good grounds. I’ve never submitted a case I didn’t believe had grounds. I don’t just throw paperwork in. So we have very good grounds.

Colleen: So have you had couples come to you to ask for that, and you look at it and say, “You don’t have a case”?

Fr. Michael Duesterhaus: What I’ll do is—I’ll say, “You’ve got to dig down. You’ve got to find me something. Because I’m not… I’m not…” You understand, if I present a case and there’s nothing there, they’re just going to give it back to me.

This is another thing. People say, “Well, 90% of annulments are granted.” Unlike civil court, where anyone can file, in Church court, you can file—and they can look at it and go, “Take it back.” So they only accept cases that have any hope.

Colleen: That was kind of what I assumed.

Fr. Michael Duesterhaus: So we vet out. It kind of changes the numbers. It’s almost like being a teacher looking over a term paper: “Nope. Go write it again.”

“Well, almost everyone’s getting A’s.”

“Yeah, but 20% of the papers are returned back.”

So anyway, we’ve put together all the paperwork, we’ve submitted it. And then in our tribunal—and only a minority, sadly, do this—we go in for what’s called a hearing, which is basically an interview. We’re at a conference table. One of the priests—who’s going to be one of the judges—is on one side. I’m with the person who’s the petitioner. There’s a priest operating basically a recording device and doing all the paperwork, called the notary.

All the young priests—when you’re newly ordained, a couple times a year—you have to go in and spend a day working in the tribunal just to understand the process. And someone’s got to be the ecclesial notary.

It’s a 45-minute to an hour-long conversation on all this paperwork you submitted—to kind of narrow in on, “Okay, what was actually going on?” It’s not accusatory. It’s not like civil court. And all that gets transcribed. The respondent—that is, the ex-spouse—gets contacted. They get a priest assigned to them, whether they want to or not, to advocate for their rights. Because again, we’re presuming the marriage is true.

Colleen: Yeah.

Fr. Michael Duesterhaus: So we have to look out for the rights of the other party. The vast majority of the time, the ex-spouse does not care—especially when it’s a non-Catholic marriage. You know, they’re probably just like, “Why are you doing this? Catholics are strange.”

But again, our diocese does a great job of due diligence—of contacting, trying to contact the ex-spouse and verifying these things. But the whole process is—we’re trying to scrape away the frost and see: Was there truly enough ingredients to make a cake?

So, you’ve submitted all this paperwork. You have the hearing. And then you get three questionnaires you have to give to three different witnesses—people who knew you before you got married—with similar questions that you’ve already been asked. They don’t have to know everything, but this is where some of the evidence comes in.

I had a case years ago. The marriage took place in another state. The woman was here. The marriage didn’t last long, and sadly it ended in physical abuse. It was a very, very sad marriage. This is like ten years after the divorce, and she finally wanted to resolve this—because she was thinking about starting to date again. But she wanted… and so the first thing I do as a priest when someone comes in—I just let them talk for an hour. Most people have never talked about it. I mean, it’s the worst part of their life. It’s a broken marriage. I’m often the first person they tell. So they just start dumping everything out, you know?

And you just have to quietly sit and listen. And then, in the back of your head, be listening for key phrases.

So after she’s laid everything out, I got some paperwork. I said, “I want your younger brother to be a witness.”

She goes, “Father, when I got married I was 19 and he was 17. He refused to come to the wedding.”

I said, “That’s right. He knew that your husband-to-be was a son of a [ __ ]. He told you not to marry him. And then after you moved to Ohio and he physically abused you for the third time, your brother got in a truck and drove from New York City to Ohio, picked you up and the baby, and drove you back home. He loves you. The fact that he, younger than you, said you should not be marrying this man is a great example that you were blind to what you were getting yourself into.”

Colleen: So would the grounds for annulment in that case be that the woman didn’t know her husband well enough to be able to raise a family? Would it go to that phrase?

Fr. Michael Duesterhaus: That was part of it. Part of it was also—he had a drinking problem that she didn’t know about. And also, in a very extreme situation—it’s very rare—but I was able to get medical records. Two weeks prior to the marriage, he snuck off and got a vasectomy.

Colleen: Oh. Openness to life…

Fr. Michael Duesterhaus: Yeah. I mean, like—that’s… and when we had that? That was there. But that’s hard to prove. That’s very hard to prove. But the point being—we’re trying to help people untie the knots in their lives.

Okay, so we have this nice process. And it’s not—we’re not looking for loopholes so we can “get this annulment.” Here’s the problem: many tribunals do not do hearings. You just mail paperwork in, and they mail you back questionnaires. And things go through the mail. And then one day, you might get a letter from the Church saying, “Your previous marriage is annulled.” And it might as well be—I hate to say this—a Catholic divorce. Because it just purely becomes a paper shuffle. There’s no one actually encountering the person.

I mean, this is a pastoral activity. Canon law is under pastoral theology. There’s dogma, there’s scripture, there’s morals—this is we’re caring for people’s souls. Because the last canon in the Code of Canon Law is: all the law exists ultimately for the salvation of souls.

So my criticism—especially of North American tribunals—is: many of them, as long as you shove enough paperwork in, something comes out the back end.

Now this is where—well, can we trust the decisions?

Colleen: Yeah, because that was a big one that came up to me after the last podcast. That’s something I started wondering.

Fr. Michael Duesterhaus: So I always use this personal phrase: They are conditionally infallible. In that—if the judge, or judges (depending on the type of case—you could have one judge, you could have several)—it’s going to fall on their eternal salvation. Because they’re saying a sacrament didn’t take place.

I want to give you the most extreme example. I am going to go to your parish church, go into the sacristy, get the tabernacle key, open up the tabernacle, take out the ciborium, and go, “This isn’t the Blessed Sacrament. It’s not consecrated. We’re going to put this on the shelf.” We’re saying a sacrament didn’t take place. This is not something we deal with lightly.

The problem is, I believe, there are many people who have gotten a divorce mentality. Many people have studied canon law, and you read these conferences… Again, Americans have the Canon Law Society, and they sit and talk, and I think many people are well-intentioned. But these people—they’re just turning the handle crank, turning the handle crank.

One of the biggest criticisms—and a legitimate one—of all the various grounds like lack of knowledge, fraud, fear, internal fear, exterior fear, deception—there are all sorts of different things that could be… In most cases in the United States, everything is run through Canon 1095, paragraph 3: lack of due discretion, which is a very fungible thing.

So I have a psychologist interview after the hearing, and we have the evidence from your friends and brothers and sisters, and I’m going to determine as the judge—which is a very difficult thing to do—and that’s why I’m not a judge. Thank God. Praise Jesus. I’ll present cases, but that’s someone else’s job. I’m too far… I’m in the Shenandoah Valley. I’m too far away from the court anyway.

But I can’t tell you the number of times I presented cases and listed one, two, and three for grounds, and suddenly—oh, we’re going to put 1095 paragraph 3 in. And it’s been overused.

Another visual: there’s an American woman—an exceptional lady—who got her doctorate in canon law from Santa Croce. This is an adaptation of her doctoral thesis. To give you an idea of the weight of this tome—it’s important—it’s Mrs. Howell, Jeffrey Howell. Cardinal Burke wrote the preface. This entire book basically goes into the use of paragraph 1095.3 and its abuses.

So, if some judge is just playing loose and fast—”Well, I got enough paperwork, and I feel confident”—they sign off. Well, I, as the Catholic, when I get the decree from the Church saying my marriage is declared null, and I’m told I’m free to get married… But if the priest didn’t do his job well, you might actually—we don’t know until eternity—but you, as a lay person, you’re in the good. The weight of responsibility is lifted off your shoulders because someone in authority and the tribunal process was worked through.

I get worried just because I have priest friends across the country, and I hear stories about other tribunals. It becomes a paper chase. And I don’t want to name any particular tribunal, because again, unless you’re on the inside working it out, you don’t know.

A lot of the numbers are cooked. Like, let’s say you have a good parish. I so remember the New Evangelization—one of the many failed initiatives. The Church, every four years, we have a new initiative, we fail, we have a bunch of conferences and meetings, we hire people, we have a diocesan office, we put things in the papers… then nothing happens. Then we wait four years, we have a new initiative. You know? So I just say: proclaim the Gospel and just get back to work.

But anyway, let’s say you actually did the New Evangelization. Okay. And let’s say you have 40 people in your RCIA class. Forty people, right? And none of them are Catholics who never got confirmed. A lot of times, Catholics go to RCIA. These are all non-Catholics—baptized or unbaptized people.

I can tell you for a fact that at least 15 of those 40 are going to need work from the tribunal in today’s day and age. If you round up that many ex-, they’re going to have previous marriages—because of the sexual revolution, divorce mentality, divorce mentality, a thousand things.

There are people in my own parish who have been waiting to enter the Church for a couple years until we resolve their previous bonds. And we’re not alone. Again, I have a priest friend in another diocese in a huge parish. They were actually doing evangelization. And it got to the point where one of the permanent deacons the parish had—he had his regular day job, as most deacons do—they had him quit his day job. The parish hired him full-time, paying a professional salary just to deal with tribunal work.

Colleen: Wow. Because they had so many cases?

Fr. Michael Duesterhaus: Yeah. And part of the time of it is, you’ve got to listen to the person. You know, it’s not just filling out paper. What was going on? Why did you choose to get married?

Again, a lot of my marriages are from the ’60s and ’70s. Back in the day, especially on the women’s behalf, they just wanted to get out of the house and away from an abusive family situation. A lot of guys—the classic one—they got the girlfriend pregnant. Classic line: “I had to do the right thing.”

Okay, well—have the baby, then maybe get married, or put the child up for adoption. But… and it’s not an exclusive—you can’t hang all your coats on that hook—but if you got married just because she was pregnant, that’s considered a type of force or fear.

There’s also the flip side—not so much today, because no one cares and more and more children are born outside marriage—but say you back up to the ’50s or ’60s: if you were a college girl and you came home pregnant, you were married. You got yourself married within six weeks. You know? It was just done with.

So we have to ask: how free was that? Did you enter into it…? Just because you were emotionally attached or sexually attracted to someone is not the best basis for permanent marriage.

Colleen: How does contraception play into that in today’s day and age—with the openness to children?

Fr. Michael Duesterhaus: Well, see, the problem is proving it. Like, I’ve had people say, “Well, throughout our entire marriage, we contracepted.” Do you have video evidence? Every night?

I mean, you know—yeah. That is one of the… it’ll be discussed, and it’s definitely one of the things that we’ll look at. But it is very—that, against the good of children—that rare situation I told you, the case where the guy had a vasectomy—it’s very difficult to prove. Okay? Very difficult.

Because basically, once you’re married and you spend one night under the same roof, the Church presumes the marriage has been consummated. Now, the contraception thing—what it’s doing—there is one of the reasons, number… So, you should do a couple of podcasts. You should reach out to some people who have been writing about this. The number of people getting married has dropped off so precipitously in the last 20 years. That’s why we have—if it wasn’t for illegal immigration—America has a negative birth rate.

Colleen: Yeah, demographic winter.

Fr. Michael Duesterhaus: Yeah. It’s happening across the world right now, and no one’s paying attention. But why do you get married? Well, to have a family life. Why do you have a family? We want to have children. Why do you have children? Because I believe and hope in the future. And people don’t. People have given up.

And I think—I don’t want to—I want to deal with this. Contraception is an issue. But the biggest elephant in the room, destroying men and why they’re not getting married—and no one wants to talk about it—is that 35% of the internet… yeah, is pornography.

Colleen: Yeah.

Fr. Michael Duesterhaus: But also, 35% of the internet is Netflix. And they mirror each other. Think of the phrase that got coined several years ago: “Oh, the series came out on Netflix. I’m going to binge-watch it this weekend.” So you’re going to sit there for hours, watching one show after the next. What is binging? That’s gluttony. That’s a sin.

Okay, and so it may not even be anything impure, but you are totally enthralled by technology. And because of the—uh, you know, I grew up as a kid in the ’70s and ’80s—yeah, we still had the old computer lab when I was in college seminary. And there were these big, hunking devices with little disks that carried no data by today’s standards. You know? And there were seven channels on the television.

It wasn’t that we had higher morals in the ’70s and ’80s—we just had fewer temptations. Now? Two clicks—it’s all out there. And there’s been so much written about this, because so many men are—I mean—impaired. Mentally impaired to enter into a bond of marriage, because their notion of how to relate to the opposite sex is totally messed up.

And if they had an addiction to pornography that they didn’t tell their spouse about when they got married, that can become grounds—possible grounds. It can be. It’s the same as a drinking problem that she didn’t know about. If it’s something she knew about, Prudence on that is still emerging, okay? But I know of cases where that has been one of the key grounds.

Colleen: This is a random question, but have you heard about how birth control—like hormonal birth control—affects who women are attracted to?

Fr. Michael Duesterhaus: Yes. Oh, of course.

Colleen: Could that be grounds? In that it affects how well they know each other? Or is that a little more iffy?

Fr. Michael Duesterhaus: Yeah, well, it’s a little more iffy. But things like: how well, how long did you date? For example, I’ve had two cases where I was able to prove the couple never dated before they got married. They just met each other and decided to get married.

One was a military couple, and they were both in the same school—it was a nine-month-long school. They were in the same formations, they ate in the same chow hall, took the same classes, were in study groups… but nowhere before they got married did the two of them put on civilian attire, go off base—just the two of them—and do something.

So they were just together all the time because they were living the same lifestyle, basically. Well, they were just hanging out. And 19 years old, and lonely.

And see, here’s another one of my big complaints: bad, stupid priests. I cannot tell you—when I do some of my cases—what these priests were thinking.

Colleen: That was going to be my next question—how much of this is bad marriage prep?

Fr. Michael Duesterhaus: Like that couple who got married—never dated. They were six months through a nine-month school. They’re 90 days from finishing, and in the military, when you finish, you’re going to go off to your assignment. “Well, we want to stay together, but we can’t get orders together unless we’re married.”

So they go to the priest—military chaplain—who, one of these days, I’m going to hunt down… and in 80 days from their request, they got married. Okay? Normally it’s six months minimum. They never went to a Pre-Cana conference. They never had a mentor couple. They took—but never reviewed—the FOCCUS, pardon me, which is an inventory. They had like two conversations with this priest. That’s about it.

Now, Pre-Cana is not everything, but it’s a parallel issue. Since I came back from Japan in 1999—and I’ve been in and out of the country on other deployments—but in the last 23 years, less than three out of ten couples who sit in my office and say, “Father, we want to get married,” actually get married.

I was in a parish where the marriage calendar book went from a book with a pen… to a book with a pencil… to a whiteboard—because, “Father, it’s probably going to get canceled.” And it was very simple: we’d have the initial meeting—very good conversation. I would have them take what’s called the FOCCUS, which stands for “Facilitating Open Couple Communication, Understanding and Study.”

Colleen: Is that like the multiple question—180 questions—“how well do we know each other”?

Fr. Michael Duesterhaus: Exactly. I’ve heard about that from friends that got married. So they’ve taken it—we haven’t even discussed it yet. They’ve taken one of the four NFP classes. Then we have a second meeting, where we start going in—and already problems are emerging.

And then, the third meeting… they call and postpone. They postpone again. Then usually the guy comes to me like, “Father, we’re going to hold off for a bit.” Then, about a month later: “Yeah, we’re not gonna get married.”

I’ve told this to younger priests. When a couple sits down—one asked me when I was ordained in ’91—I had a lot of naive assumptions. Because, you know, I come from a strong Catholic family. Two Catholics want to get married? Okay, let’s make sure they’re ready for marriage.

Well, over the years, I’ve moved from when to whether. So, when you sit down with me: should you get married? Should you marry this person now, under these conditions?

And so, after enough years, all priests have reputations. And so, in the previous parish, I had very few couples with marriage separations. Another priest said, “The couples don’t request you.” I said, “They know why.”

And then other couples seek me out because they really want to be prepared. I mean, I had one couple—they’re doing incredibly well. A successful marriage over 15 years, a bunch of kids. But they both came from horrible families. They both came from a lot of problems, and they were afraid of carrying them into their marriage. So they wanted to address that.

Part of our Pre-Cana was—I had a very good married couple who had gone through some training, and there’s a program several parishes use on having couples be mentor couples. And this is something I think needs to be done more and more. Definitely, we kind of want to cut it off at the pass—make sure people getting married know what they’re doing.

Colleen: That seems like the easiest way to make sure that you’re not getting annulments down the road—by making sure that, going into it, everything possible that could be done has been done.

Fr. Michael Duesterhaus: Well, I drafted this over 15 years ago: I have a pre-Cana youth program, okay? It begins in fourth grade. First, you learn what it means to be a friend. You follow up in fifth grade learning who is a real friend. Then sixth grade, if not earlier, how to have a friend of the opposite sex. And start talking about chastity, modesty—to 11- and 12-year-olds. Because guess what—the average boy is exposed to pornography at age nine.

So we need to be doing human formation from the very beginning. I mean, hopefully people have priestly and religious vocations, but the majority of people are going to get married. Let’s lay this foundation early.

Colleen: I had Dr. Pat Fagan on the podcast and he was talking about this. He said the best pre-Cana is your parents’ marriage. Like, hopefully you have kids growing up in a home where from birth—or even in utero—they’re still hearing the father, they’re seeing the good marriage modeled. But obviously, this is…

Fr. Michael Duesterhaus: Exactly. And that’s why I agree with that. My parents had 45 years of a beautiful marriage before cancer took my mom. I’m one of eight kids. We all went through Catholic schools. We never missed Mass. We all were altar boys. We went on family retreats. I mean, the Catholic faith was just what we did.

And so when you grow up with that, and then you talk to these people who, at best, are nominally Catholic, and they just somehow wandered into a marriage… but again, the numbers…

And I—you have to contact the canon law site, America, because they have all the data. You ever talk to anyone from CARA? The Center for Applied Research on the Apostolate?

Colleen: No, I haven’t.

Fr. Michael Duesterhaus: You should. So they were kind of wiggy back in the ’80s and ’90s, but they got themselves some new directors years ago. They’re physically at—but not part of—Georgetown.

What they’re doing is applying sociological research to everything. I remember getting a survey 10 years ago. They wrote every diocesan priest in America a three-page questionnaire: “How’s your priesthood going?” Basically, they’re just trying to crunch the numbers.

Like, why do we have this little spate—and it’s sad—but it’s been going on for a while: of many priests ordained less than five, six, seven, eight years leaving the priesthood. You know, what’s going on there? Is it bad formation? Or what’s feeding it? And then—how can we fix it?

Colleen: Probably a combination, I’m sure.

Fr. Michael Duesterhaus: Exactly. So CARA has done extensive research on marriage. They have all sorts of reports and some very good experts. I’ve been reading their stuff for decades.

There’s also The Marriage Project, which is out of UVA—used to be out of Rutgers. One of the professors there now runs it. It’s not Catholic, but it might as well be. What this guy has been doing for over 25 years is crunching data on marriage. He wrote this one digital book—and chapter two is entitled “Cohabitation: Preparation for Divorce.”

That’s another thing fitting into this—how many couples are living together before they get married? Or technically maybe they’re not living together, but they might as well be. And they’re already physically active. Does this lay a good foundation for marriage?

Colleen: That was one thing I was wondering about — if we have more annulments these days. Because, like, obviously, the fact that people just accept same-sex unions and all that… the idea of marriage today — just the secular idea, like your everyday average “Joe on the street” person’s idea of marriage — is so messed up compared to where it was 60–70 years ago. That’s going to affect how Catholics perceive it in the world, even if they know — like even if you dot your i’s and cross your t’s on what marriage is — there’s still that secular thing that’s going to affect a lot of people who don’t have that kind of formation. We have no Catholic culture.

Fr. Michael Duesterhaus: Yeah, okay. The modern world — people travel. It was a very interesting experience when I went off to seminary in Philadelphia, because I grew up in suburbia here in Fairfax County. I get up to St. Charles there in Philadelphia, and my classmates, especially from South Philly, lived in neighborhoods where they had these row houses — these very tight neighborhoods. Their cousin lived across the street, the grandmother was around the corner, and 80% of the houses were all Catholic, all tightly gathered around a church. You’d have festivals, and kids — I mean, the majority of kids in Philadelphia, up to that point, were still going to Catholic schools.

Even if you have a family that loves each other, you’re going to college in Colorado, your job’s going to take you to Montana, or whatever — people are desperately separated. I mean, our diocese here in Arlington, Virginia — most of our parishes are “inheritance” parishes. We inherit people from other parts of the country. I grew up here, but very few others did.

And they bring the good, the bad, and the ugly with them from their lives. And the sad fact is, the number of annulments is actually slowly going down — because there are fewer people seeking them out. Because there are fewer people getting married. You know, just… and I know some priests who work on larger tribunals that used to be very busy, and now they’re less and less, because either the real bad marriages from the ’70s through the early 2000s have been resolved — or people just don’t care.

Since then — I hate to say this — but within my own family, most of my adult nephews and nieces, even though my brother did a great job raising them in the faith, have all just wandered away. It’s sad. And it’s a painful thing to watch your nephew — I didn’t go, but — your nephew goes off and gets married in a backyard by a truck driver who’s also a preacher on the weekends. He was raised Catholic.

So again — this is something CARA has done some research on — we’re going to see, I believe, within 10 years… One thing is, the Church has to be more honest about its numbers. We claim X number of Catholics in America — I would cut that in half, at least. And after that, it’s going to fall down even faster.

Colleen: Well, there’s even that statistic — I think it’s that only one in three people believe the Eucharist is Christ?

Fr. Michael Duesterhaus: Yeah, that study was very interesting. Because the way they did it — it was a survey that was partly in person, partly on the phone, and some of it was just walking through a mall with a clipboard.

Colleen: Oh, weird.

Fr. Michael Duesterhaus: Now, are they standing in my church parking lot after Mass, asking people going to Mass about the Real Presence? Or is it Bubba, who says, “Yeah, I guess I’m Catholic,” you know?

When I was on my first deployment, we were aboard the ships heading over — we’d left CONUS and were heading to the Middle East. I was above decks getting some sun, and one of my corporals was there. We were going back and forth, talking about things of life, and at one point I said to him, “You really need—” He had his dog tags on — it said “Catholic” on them.

He said, “Well, I’m Catholic.” I said, “No, you’re not. Your grandmother’s Catholic. Your mother used to be. You never got baptized.” He saw being Catholic as a cultural thing. I told him, “If you’re not baptized, you’re not in the club. Just like you say, ‘I’m Irish, I’m Catholic,’ even if you were never baptized.”

This guy knew nothing of the Catholic faith, but he had that on his dog tags. I said, “I can put Jedi Knight on my dog tags — that doesn’t make me Obi-Wan Kenobi.”

Colleen: (laughs) Okay, yeah.

Fr. Michael Duesterhaus: I actually had a Marine try to do that.

Colleen: Really?

Fr. Michael Duesterhaus: Yeah. Because you have your last name, first name, blood type, and then the last line is your religion. And he wanted to put down “Jedi.” The S-1 said, “That’s not on the list.”

Most of them say “no preference” or “no pref,” you know. I had special dog tags made — I got permission. Mine say “Catholic Priest,” so in case anything happened, they’d know. Because you’re not wearing a Roman collar — you’re wearing a digital uniform, getting blown up.

But yeah, going back to the beginning of all this — the process does exist. My concern is that we are pushing the grounds on psychological incapacity a little too far. Again, Msgr. Gih— he does a wonderful job. It’s not a book the average Catholic is ever going to read — it’s a doctoral tome. But this is what we get to read when we do graduate work.

The whole notion is, the presumption is: there’s truly a marriage. I need eggs, flour, water, yeast, salt, sugar to make a cake. A lot of Americans just dump some flour in, throw the whole egg in, dump a few other things, put it in a microwave — ching! — and so they got a brick.

Also — again — if two Catholics don’t understand the true sense of marriage, why would two Protestants who got married on the beach in South Carolina in a ceremony they wrote themselves?

We have to assume — we make the general presumption — it’s valid. Because again, if both parties are Christian, we assume it to be sacramental. If both parties are not, then it’s just a bond. And if both parties are unbaptized, that’s just a common bond. So if you had two people who were baptized but not baptized Catholic — say, two Presbyterians or Methodists who wrote their own vows — that’s fine. That’s considered a marriage.

Colleen: Until — unless there’s something else going on?

Fr. Michael Duesterhaus: Yeah, yeah. Okay. So the general assumption is, you can get married. I had this one case — again, they’re always very sad in one form or another — Another guy’s marriage lasted less than two years. Uh, there were all sorts of problems. He’s been divorced for five years. He’s dating a Catholic girl. The Catholic girl basically put the whole relationship on hold the second she found out he had been married before. She said, “Listen, you know, I’m not going down that path. You’re a nice guy, but…” And so he came to talk to me.

And I said to him, “Listen, I do not want anyone—I’ve done this my entire priesthood, especially with my Marines and sailors who are dating Catholics—do not become a Catholic to make your girlfriend happy. That said, the Church will, if you wish, investigate this marriage. You don’t have to be Catholic to have it investigated.”

Okay, he came to me because—and ultimately, he did become a Catholic. Well, by the way, just—it didn’t matter particularly—but keep in mind, they got married on a beach in either North or South Carolina. They had this wedding coordinator lady who had her own little templates of how you could do your ceremony.

And just—it doesn’t really… The couple was Black. Well, part of the ceremony, the minister held out a broom and they jumped over the broom. And I was explaining to him, I said, “Do you understand what you did?”

He said, “Well, they said it was an old tradition.” I said, “Yeah—for slaves. That’s how slaves got married in the 18th and 19th centuries. So that when the owner wanted to sell one or the other, he would take a broom and brush the doorstep of your little cabin, and then take your wife away and say your marriage is done away with.”

And he looked at me, he goes, “I’m the most racist person in the world. I did a slave wedding on myself.”

But no—uh, I do not know the numbers. Again, I would defer to the people who work in the tribunals, who have all this data. But my perception is, we have a lot of… A lot of my cases—until very recently—I mean very recently, I’m actually looking into marriages that took place in Virginia and were Catholic.

My first 30 years, they were all from other states, not other countries. And like I said, over half were not Catholic. And just sorting those things out—yeah, you know—people sometimes get married for the worst of reasons. You know, women are getting older, the clock is going, “I gotta find somebody.” Guys, similarly—“Wow, I’m getting up there.”

No tribunal that I’m aware of takes the process lightly. Again, I’m concerned that some do shuffle papers a little too much. I’m concerned that—you know, one of the biggest difficulties when I did cases for the Military Archdiocese is—they’re around the world. So it’s near impossible for them to do an in-person hearing.

Yeah, and so it then makes it even more of a double paper chase. So—I’m not criticizing them—but to me, you really need to have that dialogue and also allow the person themselves to feel that the Church is concerned about them too, you know? Listen to their story.

But again, once it’s been investigated, and enough evidence has been brought forth by witnesses—and sometimes there’s an examination by mental health professionals, if that is part of the whole situation—when the final decree comes, that is a statement of the Church that the sacrament did not exist. We have to trust that.

Now, just like anything—what if all the witnesses lied? Okay, but that’s what the judge knew. So then all the witnesses… go to hell!

Colleen: So yeah, basically, if you have a situation where both parties, to the best of their knowledge, everything they presented is—as far as they know—true, and the judge makes a decision, even if that decision was technically incorrect, it’s on the judge. Not on the shoulders of the people who got the annulment. And you can trust that that’s true.

Fr. Michael Duesterhaus: I’ve had not a few cases where both the petitioner and the respondent were seeking the case. They both knew they entered into a bad relationship.

Colleen: If you’re in a marriage—or I guess if you realize you’re in a relationship—and you have grounds for an annulment, like you thought you were married for real, but for some reason there was no form, but you actually want to stay together, would you just go to the Church and have your marriage blessed? Basically, what would you have to do there?

Fr. Michael Duesterhaus: Okay, rephrase that for me.

Colleen: Like—I’m thinking of a situation. If you have a couple who are together, they thought they got married, they realize later on that—maybe the girl was a fallen-away Catholic—they got married in a Protestant church

Fr. Michael Duesterhaus: so that’s a lack of form.

Colleen: But they’re not separated. They want to continue. They want to be married. Would they just go to the Church and renew their vows?

Fr. Michael Duesterhaus: Kind of. Part of it is, you basically have to do the pre-Cana. You were Catholic; you should have done this right. But part of it also—there’s a lot of times, because 45 years of crummy CCD puts us where we are. I can’t tell you the horror I’ve seen on faces sometimes—people in my office—when I explain to them, “Now, you got married outside the Church. You can’t go to confession or Holy Communion until we get this resolved.”

You have to sit in the pew. And for how long? This could be six to nine months depending on the situation. It could be shorter. And it’s not that they’re arrogant—they’re just ignorant.

“Well, we just started coming back to Church a couple months ago. I’ve been going to Communion.”

I said, “Well, you may have gone through it physically, but you were not spiritually disposed to receive. And if you do it knowledgeably—that’s sacrilege. What you did was in ignorance.”

So a lot of times they’re like, “Oh my goodness, I gotta get myself squared away.” This is what’s called a convalidation—bringing validity. So I have a civil bond. I now want to make it sacramental.

Okay, so I get a copy of your civil marriage license, I get your baptism records, we do the FOCCUS thing again—we have other things. But part of it is first finding out: why didn’t you get married in the Church? And in many cases—and I would say in the majority, at least in my priesthood—usually if both parties are Catholic, or even if one is, usually the Catholic party never got confirmed.

Colleen: Oh, interesting.

Fr. Michael Duesterhaus: Yeah, so they got First Communion, maybe Confession, but—Grandma dragged them to church to a certain point, and then, you know, Mom and Dad didn’t care. And so a lot of times, you have to get them through Confirmation preparation. It’s not an absolute requirement, but it’s expected that you be confirmed before you’re married.

Now, I’ve had situations where people have tied their lives into such knots—and I had to untie them all. On a Saturday morning, I had a couple come in. We had a nice little Mass. And in the Mass: the bride got confirmed, the groom made First Communion and Confirmation, they did their marriage vows in the Church—then the witnesses for the marriage stepped over 15 steps—and we baptized all three of their children.

And we got everything caught up. How many sacraments can you fit into one Mass? Now we’re going to do a Eucharistic procession! But you know, you tidy it all up.

I’m doing several of those right now in my own parish—people who are coming back to the faith. The woman in question never got confirmed. They have a civil bond, but they’ve been together civilly for 14 years. They have kids. So, part of it was just—we’ve been mostly talking about the human element of marriage at that point. Let’s talk about: how do we pray together? What does it mean to sanctify our children’s lives?

The hard thing often is—especially when Catholics have drifted away for many years, and they come back—they never raised their children as Catholic. But now they’re back in their 50s and 60s. Their adult children—maybe they’ve been baptized, but that’s it. The grandchildren are unbaptized. And they say, “Oh, I want my grandchildren baptized.”

Well… all you can do is encourage. Because ultimately, it would be on the parents, not the grandparents. This is why we have—you know—I mean, more and more Protestants aren’t Christians. They’re not baptized.

Colleen: Oh, okay. I thought you meant they just didn’t have Christian belief.

Fr. Michael Duesterhaus: Okay, they’re just—no. I remember one five-week period, I had five different couples come into my parish. It was a Catholic girl and a Baptist guy, unrelated. Boom, boom, boom—every single Baptist guy was unbaptized. I said, “You guys need to change the name of your church.”

Have you ever heard of Mlan Bible Church? The big one on the radio? It’s up in Tennessee. It’s one of these mega churches, 3,000 seats. About 10 years ago, the head minister said, “We’re not baptized anymore, just take Jesus in your heart.”

It says in the Gospels, “Go out and baptize.” I guess there’s a lot of other things it says in the Gospels that they ignore. “Do this in remembrance of me, this is my body,” it says a lot of things, you know. No, I think—I mean, I wish we didn’t have to spend time on this, but it is important.

And for anyone watching this. I apologize—I was telling our host here, I have a face made for radio, so I shouldn’t be on video. We’re going to blot me out, just put a big disc here. But especially if it’s a family member or close friend, and their marriage is broken and it’s not going to get resolved—not everyone should seek out an annulment—but have them talk to their priest.

And again, I’m in a blessed diocese. I have some wonderful brother priests. I look at the young guys who’ve been ordained, especially in the last seven or eight years. I mean, I went through seminary, you know, I just fogged a mirror and stayed in line. Nowadays you have to pass all the classes, you have to be nice, you know—all these other requirements we didn’t have back in the day.

But no, I have a lot of good priests, so I can at least say, you know, and for the younger priests who maybe don’t have experience—okay, but he’ll listen to your story. And like I did as a young priest many times—when I was in my first two years as a priest, I had people come to me and I really didn’t see anything to go forward on.

I asked permission, “May I go speak with another priest who has more experience, who might see something?” It’s just like being a new doctor doing residency.

I remember when I was newly ordained, a bunch of people—oh, we should get in Father’s line for confession. They said, “Don’t get in my line, get in Brother Bran’s. He’s been a priest for 57 years. You want to go to confession to him? He knows what he’s doing. I’m clueless.”

No, but I think part of it is just if you know, at least talk to your parish priest and see what you should do.

Also, big thing—I’ve actually preached on this—if you’re single, please don’t dare date married people. And if you’re married, please don’t date people not your spouse. It sounds silly, but if people didn’t do those two things, I would have a lot less heartburn in my life.
You know, one positive thing about Catholic dating apps: they vet whether someone is, the good ones, whether the person is free to get actually married—no previous bonds or whatever.

And let’s wave a magic wand—let’s just say, “Oh yeah, I was married civilly for a couple of years; the Church declared that, you know, lack of form.” Well, that person has a broken relationship in their past—are they going to carry that same attitude? Again, you can go through the best ceremony, but do you understand what you’re doing? It’s very, very important.

In the old rite now, you use it in the new rite—there’s this beautiful cation prior to marriage. It’s beautiful. You can find it online—very scriptural, just very solid. And it talks about the whole notion of marriage being about sacrifice—you’re going to sacrifice for each other.
I always tell people the last thing you’re ever going to do, the last thing you’re ever going to take, is a spouse. And after that, it’s all giving. “I take you to be my husband, my wife,” and after that, it’s all about giving to each other and then to your children.

That’s beautiful. And when you see that, something I especially impress upon men is that in marriage, they should never, ever apologize to their wife. They should never say, “I’m sorry.” They should say, “Please forgive me.” Because when I say “I’m sorry,” I’m staying in power. When I say “Please forgive me,” I’m giving it over to you.

We need men to be men, men to be husbands. If more men were real men, my life would be easier because children would actually—I mean, this is nothing original to me—it’s been proven sociologically the last 60 years: growing up in a home with a father and mother is always going to lead to a better life than single parenthood. We messed up life.
And I just think we have to push back against a very pagan culture—a culture where divorce is made so easy now, and in some cases so quick. And that’s where again, we have to start the formation as children—what is marriage about?

Colleen: I’ve said that on here before, just—we’ve had multiple generations now growing up with divorce being normalized. And so even if your parents stayed together, people in your family didn’t necessarily stay together; friends’ parents didn’t necessarily stay together.

At least of my generation, I feel like there’s a lot of people growing up having seen broken homes and seeing all the problems that come out of it. And it’s just being able to heal from those wounds and being able to make sure that your marriage will last, and having how important that is, and that you’re prepared for marriage, and you’ve had the good marriage prep, and you have all the tools you need to be able to make your marriage last—that’s so important.

Fr. Michael Duesterhaus: Last thing on annulments: there are many different types of conditions—things where, for example, it’s not actually an annulment but actually a suppression. If both parties were in a marriage before and neither of you were baptized, and it was very—it was definitely a bad marriage, but it’s very difficult ascertaining facts because of time, or it’s—they were from Bangladesh, now in the United States or something like that, and you want to become Catholic and marry a Catholic, it’s called the privilege of the faith case. And so it is better for you—citing St. Paul’s epistles—

Colleen: Is this the Pauline exemption?

Fr. Michael Duesterhaus: Yes, Pauline exemption, and then there’s a Petrine exemption. But it’s better for you to be in a Catholic sacramental bond than this dubious pagan relationship that, you know, is not going to exist. So that unbaptized, in some cases not even civil, which is common law marriage from before, is actually dissolved.

And it said, you know, this is set aside because it’s better to be married in the Church. Again, St. Paul, his exhortation to widows that maybe you should remarry if you’re younger, but if you remarry, it must be in the faith. Yeah, and that’s another thing—if why would a Catholic marry a non-Catholic? I was telling you the last marriage story. Remember in school we learned about adding fractions? Yeah. What did you want? A high common denominator. Well, if you’re going to spend the rest of your life together and form a family, and you don’t share the Catholic faith, then do you have a common denominator enough to be together?

And I think that’s where we have to really impress upon our youth: if you’re going to look for a spouse, look two pews over during Sunday Mass, you know. I just think we have to really be thinking about what are you getting yourself into, why you doing it?

And then also, when I go to confession, that’s a moment of sacramental grace. When I receive Holy Communion, that’s a moment of sacramental grace. Every day you fulfill your marriage vows, you show attention to your spouse, you assist them, you show physical affection—all those are grace moments. That’s the sacrament acting.

So as a married couple, you have multiple times a day you can have sanctifying grace, but you have to know you’re doing it and seek it out. So when you call your wife at 11:59 right before lunch and say, “We need to pray the angels together over the phone,” that’s an act of love God graciously blessed. That’s beautiful.

Colleen: Thank you so much for joining us today, Father. This has been really good to have a look at it from the perspective of someone who knows the process from the inside and also a parish priest who’s been able to work with couples and have that perspective on marriage prep as well. So thank you for joining us.

Fr. Michael Duesterhaus: Glad to be here.

Colleen: And to all of our listeners, please like and subscribe, check out the new ebooks we have coming out, and keep on living the culture of life. God bless.

(This transcript was AI generated. Please verify exact quotes using the episode audio).