Whispers in the loggia: "The Meek and Merciful Jesus" – With Synod In the Balance, Pope To Unveil Annulment Reform

It's not intentional – we think – but whatever the reason, US holidays in the reign of Francis have invariably brought significant developments over the Vatican beat, whether they're PopeTrips over Memorial Day and Thanksgiving or Consistories every President's Day... and lo and behold, just when this Labor Day was finally looking to be a last gasp of peace two weeks before his arrival in Washington, he did it again: at Roman Noon this Monday, the Holy See suddenly announced a major press conference tomorrow to reveal two major documents "on the reform of the canonical process for causes of the declaration of the nullity of marriage."

Closing out the work of a group of nine canonists charged with studying the issue in the quiet of August last year, the texts – both issued motu proprio (that is, on Francis' own intent) – will be called Mitis Iudex Dominus Iesus ("The Softness of the Law of the Lord Jesus") for the Latin Code of Canon Law and Mitis et misericors Iesus ("The Meek and Merciful Jesus") for the Eastern Churches. The titles and forms of the announced texts hint not only at the most significant revamp of the annulment protocols at least since the 1983 publication of the revised Latin Code – and a loosening of the process at that – but likewise a reworking of the relevant canons in each of the volumes to enact a permanent, universal, ostensibly sweeping change to the law.

As noted amid last week's Year of Mercy provisions for confessors, as the church's supreme legislator enjoying "full, supreme, universal and ordinary" jurisdiction, Francis is able to alter canon law at will. While no legal alterations were made in that instance, the announcement of juridical texts here indicates a drastically different result.

Against the backdrop of next month's climactic Synod on the Family – over which a focus on the pastoral care of divorced and civilly remarried Catholics looms large – the presser will feature several top-tier figures who served on the "special commission" studying the nullity process, including the Dean of the Rota (usually the Vatican's ultimate tribunal on marriage cases) Msgr Pio Pinto, the chief of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts Cardinal Francesco Coccopalmerio, the CDF Secretary Archbishop Luis Ladaria SJ and, perhaps most intriguingly, Msgr Alejandro Bunge, long Cardinal Bergoglio's lead church lawyer in Buenos Aires, who Francis brought with him to Rome within weeks of his election to serve as the Pope's "pocket canonist." Likewise a member of the study commission, Bunge – who formally came to the Vatican as a member of the Rota on Francis' appointment – is the lone Argentine recruited by the pontiff to be at his side.

While conservative canonists have reacted to any tweaking of the nullity process with a resistance akin to changing Revelation itself, Francis' lodestar of "mercy" has long hinted at an impatience with the litigiousness, and resulting sense of intimidation, that the tribunal setup can tend to create. Already, a significant swath of bishops have heeded the Pope's calls to drop all fees for nullity cases, and in his customary address earlier this year to the Rota at the start of its term, Papa Bergoglio urged its "auditors" (judges) to "not close the salvation of people inside a juridical bottleneck" – an implicit reference not just to a backlog of cases that, in Rome, has stretched back for several years, but likewise to the final canon of the Latin Code, which demands that "the salvation of souls, which must always be the supreme law in the church, is to be kept before one’s eyes."

Developing – more to come.

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by Rocco Palmo via Whispers in the Loggia