Religion: The Rota

Film Producer Carlo Ponti and Actor Vittorio Gassman are waiting this week—and probably will be for many more—to hear whom they are married to, if anyone. So is a British petty officer named William, whose German wife Olga claimed she had taken a vow of chastity and refused to have sexual intercourse with him, but nevertheless presented him with a child. So is Nick, a Manhattan Sicilian, who claims the Mafia frightened him into marrying 14-year-old Tonina. Their marital fates—and those of many other Roman Catholics throughout the world—are being decided by Rome's Sacred Rota, one of Christendom's oldest and least understood courts.

Declarations of Nullity. The Sacred Roman Rota is 700 years old and probably takes its name from the circular hall in which its priestly judges, who are called auditors, used to convene. It is, with rare exceptions, the court of last appeal as to whether or not a marriage is valid in the eyes of the Roman Catholic Church. Its wheels grind slowly: the average case drags on for four to five years, and some may last for 20. When one woman complained to a churchman that her beauty might suffer, he replied: "Madame, the church has observed that in 20 years one or all of the parties may be dead, and the matter resolves itself."

The Rota does not, properly speaking, annul marriages—it declares them never to have existed. Most such "declarations of nullity," can be disposed of by the tribunals at diocesan level: in Italy no case is considered by the Rota unless it has gone through two such lower courts, and cases outside Italy must have been judged by at least one. Even so, the Rota's load has grown with the times. In 1937 it handled 70 cases. Last year there were 198, in 88 of which declarations of nullity were granted.

Those who can pay generally find the process expensive—win or lose; lawyers' fees and court costs range up to $5,000. But the poor—contrary to widespread belief—may have both items paid for by a fund set up for the purpose. Each case is pondered by at least three of the eighteen auditors (called "black cardinals" for their black, ermine-lined formal vestments), whose dean is white-haired, Pennsylvania-born Msgr. Francis J. Brennan, 65, a veteran of 20 years' service on the Rota.

Impediments & Insufficiencies. The grounds for nullification fall into three categories: 1) impediment, 2) insufficiency of consent, 3) faulty canonical form. Impediments include underage (brides must be 14, grooms 16), impotence (but not sterility), disparity of worship (a Catholic cannot, without dispensation, validly marry a person who has not been baptized), abduction (a valid ground only for brides), crime (such as murdering one's mate to marry another), consanguinity, though in certain cases dispensation can be granted, "public honesty" (a man living with a concubine cannot marry into her family, and vice versa).

Some impediments that were once fairly common—such as a bride's glass eye or artificial leg—are virtually nonexistent in today's world of brief bathing suits and great social intimacy. Grounds for annulment must have existed prior to marriage: impotence that develops afterward is no ground.