The Catholic Lawyer Volume 1 Number 2 Volume 1, April 1955, Number 2 Article 2 Fraud and Error in the Canon Law of Marriage William F. Cahill, B.A., J.C.D. Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.law.stjohns.edu/tcl Part of the Catholic Studies Commons, Christianity Commons, and the Religion Law Commons This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at St. John's Law Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in The Catholic Lawyer by an authorized editor of St. John's Law Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. This is the first of two articles designed to enable the common law lawyer to distinguish civil annulments for fraud from Roman Catholic declarations of nullity on grounds of defective consent. FRAUD AND ERROR IN THE CANON LAW OF MARRIAGE WILLIAM F. CAHILL, B.A., J.C.D.* A READER OF THE CATHOLIC LAWYER has asked for a statement of the Canon Law on fraudulent marriage. The direct answer is that there is no Canon Law on the subject because fraud, as such, makes marriage neither void nor even voidable in the law of the Catholic Church.' It is understandable that lawyers who are familiar with civil annul- ments - particularly as they are granted in New York State - might well misunderstand the grounds upon which the Catholic Church grants declarations of nullity. It is possible, for instance, that a marriage which has been annulled on grounds of fraud by a civil court might also be declared null and void from its inception by an ecclesiastical court on the grounds that error had vitiated the consent of one of the parties at the time of the marriage.