VATICAN CITY - As reformed rules for marriage annulment cases came into effect, Pope Francis said the new norms are to be adhered to in order to help bring healing to failed marriages.

PHILADELPHIA - As the director of the Catholic Organization for Life and Family, Michele Boulva is well-known in the Canadian Catholic Church. Yet at the World Meeting of Families Sept. 23, she mentioned something she had never told publicly before.

Pope Francis never claimed to be a canon lawyer, but he knows Mary and he knows mercy. Mary and mercy are the keys to understanding the first major reform in the Church������Ƶapp marriage laws since 1741 and the first changes to the Code of Canon Law under Pope Francis, said the only North American among 12 canon lawyers consulted on changes to Church marriage annulments.

VATICAN CITY - Pope Francis' reformed rules for marriage annulment cases, making the process simpler, quicker and less expensive, respond to calls that bishops from around the world have been making since before the 1980 Synod of Bishops on the family convoked by St. John Paul II.

VATICAN CITY - While a juridical process is necessary for making accurate judgments, the Catholic Church������Ƶapp marriage annulment process must be quicker, cheaper and much more of a pastoral ministry, Pope Francis said.

VATICAN CITY - Pope Francis raised the prospect of no-cost marriage annulments Nov. 5 after revealing he had dismissed a Church official for selling annulments for thousands of dollars, which he called a “public scandal.”

VATICAN CITY - Pope Francis has appointed a special commission to look at ways to make it easier for Roman Catholics to dissolve their marriages in the eyes of the Church.

VATICAN CITY - Two weeks before the start of an extraordinary Synod of Bishops on the family, the Vatican announced the formation of a special commission to reform the process of granting marriage annulments.