Workaholism as a Cause of Consensual Incapacity to Marry in the Jurisprudence of the Roman Rota. Procedural implications

Abstract

In the presented article, the issue of the influence of workaholism on the consensual incapacity to marry in the jurisprudence of the Roman Rota became the subject of attention. The Author’s analysis of the rotal judgments showed that in the vast majority of them, with the exception of one, the validity of the marriage was judged. However, the Author did not stop at this conclusion, but posed an important question: whether such a state of jurisprudence would prove that workaholism cannot be considered a cause of consensual incapacity. He answered this question in the negative, maintaining that rotational sentencing was mainly determined by the conditions of the cases. He also observed that there were explicit references to the canonical category of mental anomaly in the sentences examined. In favour of the thesis that workaholism could be a cause of psychological nature, he supported it with the results of research in psychology and medicine. He took the view that workaholism could prevent the undertaking of essential marital duties in the areas of spousal well-being and the well-being of offspring.