Mental Reservation During the Premarital Inquiry

Father John,
Why would someone tell a priest that he wants a marriage that lasts "until death do us part", or that he wants to have children, or that he intends to be faithful, unless he means it at the time? I don't understand men that make such promises and then don't keep them. From your years at the Marriage Tribunal, can you shed some light on this issue?

Thank you,
Mary

Mary, in my three decades in Tribunal Ministry, I've dealt with many cases where a husband or a wife said things they don't mean at the time they were getting married. And I've also dealt with many cases in which they meant well, but were not mature enough to understand the commitments they were making, and still other cases where they did understand their commitments, but were not capable of fulfilling them.

But, after all these years, I still can't tell you why such things happen, except to say that God didn't create any perfect people. Even the Mother of the Son of God was preserved from original sin at the moment of her conception. But the very fact that she was conceived at a particular moment in time. Therefore, according to the philosophers of ancient Greece, she was not a perfect being, since only an eternal being, which has neither beginning nor end, is truly perfect.