“Human judgment on the nullity of marriage cannot [...] be manipulated by false mercy.” This was the warning issued by Leo XIV when he received participants in a training course of the Roman Rota — the court of appeal for cases of Catholic marriage nullity — on November 21, 2025. During this audience, he recommended that his predecessor's reform in this area should be carried out in a manner that is “never at the expense of the truth” about the situation of couples.
Speaking to those who will rule on annulments in the future, he emphasized respect for the truth as authentic mercy, and recommended validating marriages.
This meeting marked the 10th anniversary of the 2015 reform of the process for recognizing the nullity of marriage, initiated by Pope Francis. The reform simplified the procedures for those wishing to have their Catholic marriage annulled. In particular, the Argentine pontiff abolished the requirement for a double concordant sentence and introduced the possibility of a brief trial handled by the diocesan bishop in cases of manifest nullity.
This reform, which aimed to make trials more accessible and less prone to long delays, must not be carried out “at the expense of truth,” warned Leo XIV in his speech to the auditors and lawyers responsible for ruling on the validity of religious marriages.
He insisted: “Every faithful person, every family, every community needs truth about their ecclesial situation in order to walk well the path of faith and charity.”
The importance of the judicial procedure
The Pope was himself a judge on the regional ecclesiastical court of Trujillo (Peru) from 1989 to 1998 after completing a thesis in canon law.
In his address, he defended the merits of a judicial rather than a purely administrative procedure. He insisted that this is not a “cumbersome accumulation of procedural requirements” but an “instrument of justice.”
For the good of the people, the Pontiff asked that all parties, including the defender of the bond — the person who defends the institution of marriage in a trial — be guaranteed the opportunity to “present evidence and arguments in support of their position” in a “trial conducted and concluded by an impartial judge.”
He urged respect for the “binding requirements of justice,” without compromising them “on the basis of a misunderstood compassion” and without allowing judgment to be “manipulated by a false mercy.”
“True mercy,” he added, is exercised “in the proper exercise of judicial authority.”
Respecting the union and saving relationships
The head of the Catholic Church also defended marriage “founded by the Creator” and “the measure of true love between a man and a woman.”
In dealing with cases of nullity, he invited magistrates to keep present the “awareness of working in the service of the truth of a concrete union, discerning before the Lord whether the mystery of una caro, one flesh, is present in it, which subsists forever in the earthly life of the spouses, despite any relational failure.”
Before any trial, Leo XIV urged them to “promote reconciliation between spouses,” to find agreements “through mediation and conciliation,” and to resort “where possible” to the “validation of marriage”—the removal of impediments that allow an invalid marriage to be regularized.
