Save Our Sacrament: Challenging Catholic Annulment & Respondent Education / Support (CCARES)
Welcome to Save Our Sacrament!
SOS MISSION STATEMENT:
S.O.S. was founded in 1997 to help Catholic and Protestant Respondents defend their marriage sacrament from being annulled.
SOS is a network of former Respondents whose purpose is to offer support to new Respondents facing the annulment process, via online advising and education. This support helps Respondents work through the Catholic annulment labyrinth to the successful outcome of ‘saving their sacrament’ and their self-respect.
This mission is based on our belief in the dignity of the Respondent, the welfare of each child in these marriages, and the validity of the marriage sacrament as God’s Grace.
What We Do
We are a 501C3 nonprofit organization and offer our services without charge. We are supported entirely by private donations.
We have worked with nearly 900 Respondents.
SOS continues to be inspired by Sheila Rauch Kennedy, author of Shattered Faith: A Woman's Struggle to Stop the Catholic Church from Annulling Her Marriage.
We can help:
If you are a Respondent with questions about the Catholic annulment process, we can help;
If you are a Respondent facing an intimidating Roman Catholic Tribunal, we can help;
If you are preparing an Appeal to Rome, we can help.
( N. B. the Roman Rota overturns most of the American tribunal decisions):
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The United States has six percent of the world's Catholic population, but U.S. Tribunals annul over three-fourths of all annulments worldwide.
In Italy, by comparison, only a third of requests for annulment are granted.
Catholics are taught that marriage is a Sacrament as an essential belief of their Roman Catholic faith.
The American Catholic Church annually grants over 60,000 annulments, three-quarters of the total granted throughout the world. In roughly 90% of all cases that come before the American Church councils, or tribunals, officials rule that 'in the eyes of God the marriage never truly existed.'
As more than one observer of religion has noted, 'The United States has become the Nevada of the annulment world.' Another expert in canon law boasted, 'There isn't a marriage in America that we can't annul.'
Sheila Rauch Kennedy, Shattered Faith, p. 12
"Annulment is now a form of divorce in every way but name, and the church [hierarchy] refusal to acknowledge this is deeply corrupting. Moreover, the Catholic annulment procedures hurt children, are cruel to former spouses, force applicants to misrepresent the past, mock well-meaning priests, and drive many thousands out of the church. It is a disaster."
James Carroll, (pub. 2001) Boston Globe, May 13, 1997