Catholic Annulment vs. Secular Divorce: What’s the Difference?

Most people don’t understand what an annulment is in the Catholic Church. It’s often thought of as essentially a Catholic version of divorce; different word, same effect—the dissolution of a marriage. Not only is that not the case, but a failure to recognize why an annulment is not the same as a divorce can cause us to see marriage as something just as frivolous as many in the secular world see it.

When a marriage ends, most people think of divorce—a legal dissolution of the union in the eyes of the state. But that’s completely incorrect. An annulment—more formally, a “declaration of nullity—is complete different in every way from a divorce. The two are not interchangeable, and understanding their differences reveals a deep beauty of what God established in a marriage, what Jesus elevated as a sacrament, and the theology of what the Church teaches marriage truly is.

In Catholic teaching, marriage is not merely a legal arrangement or social institution. It is a sacramental covenant, a lifelong union between a man and a woman, ordered toward the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of children.

This covenant mirrors Christ’s unbreakable bond with the Church (Ephesians 5:25–32). Because it is sacred and permanent, a valid sacramental marriage cannot be ended by any human power. The Church isn’t undoing a marriage with a declaration of nullity; it’s declaring that the covenant of marriage was never entered into at all.

Let’s talk about those conditions….