Introduction

Abstract

Introduction Ronny E. Jenkins, Editor This inaugural edition of Decisions of the Roman Rota includes five decisions, four definitive sentences and one preliminary decree, all from 2021. Three of them address the grounds of nullity of can. 1095, 2o and 3o. Various causes of the psychic anomalies are mentioned, including narcissistic personality disorder, child of an alcoholic parent syndrome, affective immaturity, and dependent personality and avoidant personality disorders. The other two concern the exclusion of the bonum sacramenti and bonum prolis. Three of the four definitive sentences render an affirmative decision, one a negative, and the decree likewise resolves a preliminary question negatively. What follows here are introductions to each decision that to various degrees summarize the case, offer background information, and provide limited commentary on the decision itself. As is customary with the publication of decisions of the Roman Rota, the names of persons mentioned in them have been changed and other identifying information, such as place names, has been rendered anonymous. 1. Coram Arokiariaj: The incapacity to assume essential obligations of marriage due to a narcissistic personality disorder (can. 1095 §3) The Roman Rota has issued a number of decisions involving the presence of narcissistic personality disturbances in parties who contract marriage. Among sentences issued between 1983 and 2009 that were published in Decisiones seu sententiae, González Merlano counts 23 decisions rendered in favor of the nullity of marriage and 11 in favor of the bond.1 Since 2009, an additional sentence in favor of the bond was published in the same series, this one coram Pinto from March 6, 2014.2 The present decision coram Arokiariaj now adds to this growing body of available jurisprudence on the impact of narcissism on marital consent. Canonical literature on narcissism is limited. The most thorough study remains that of Augustine Mendonça published in 1993 in Studia Canonica.3 While the most recent one is the above referenced article by González Merlano. Few other contributions dedicated specifically [End Page 3] to this subject were written between 1993 and 2017, the years when these two works appeared.4 Prior to Mendonça’s work, several other authors wrote on narcissism and matrimonial consent. These include Robert Sanson,5 Edward Komora6 and an author cited in the decision coram Arokiariaj, Giuseppe Versaldi.7 Mendonça offers a useful and concise summary of conclusions drawn from these authors. It is worth an extended citation. The approaches adopted by these authors in regard to canonical effects of narcissistic personality disorder may be summarized as follows: First, the narcissistic pathology in certain forms and in a certain degree of severity may give rise to an incapacity for eliciting a valid matrimonial consent (c. 1095, 2o). The underlying pathology is such that the person affected by it may be deprived of the capacity for a mature decision concerning the very person of the partner and marriage itself. Such an incapacity would imply that the intrapsychic integration (harmony) is so disturbed that he or she is rendered incapable of placing a human act proportionate to its object, that is, the rights and obligation of marriage. Second, the pathological intrapsychic integration involved in narcissism may be such that it incapacitates the patient relative to the assumption of the obligations of communion of life (interpersonal relationship), of the good of the spouse, of children, and a fidelity (c. 1095, 3o). Third, the nature of the pathology may be such that in certain cases it may give rise to what is called in psychology ‘interpersonal psychopathology’ which is the result of a combination of two person’ personality deficiencies, which in canonical language is known as ‘relative incapacity’. This is not uncommon in cases of personality disorders.8 In coram Arokiariaj, we see the second of the three approaches; namely, the incapacity of the petitioner man to assume and fulfill the obligations marriage, “especially the good of the spouses, which under the law must be seen as pertaining to the establishment of the communion of life (n. 3).” The sentence offers a reminder that the psychic issues that give rise to the in-capacity must be grave and not simply minor character flaws. To...