The Pope has published two documents today which lay down important reforms in the annulment process. Just how important this may be, only time will tell, but all the indications are that this is a major innovation, and a welcome one. The two motu proprio are available on the Vatican website so far only in Latin and Italian, but there is a summary of the main points here from Vatican Radio, and there is penetrating commentary, as ever, from the Vaticanista John Allen.  This move by the Pope – and a motu proprio has the force of law for the Church – will make a huge difference to people who up to now have suffered greatly under the present dispensation. I am thinking of those, in the United Kingdom, for example, who have been forced to wait up to five years for the process to play out, even though the outcome of that process has been clear from the beginning. And I am thinking of those in Africa (and there may be other places too) where there is no diocesan tribunal, and who cannot get an annulment at all. For people caught up in these situations, there will now be a faster track approach, or a decision made by the local bishop. The annulment process has, perhaps unfairly, not had a good press. These reforms will make the process much more “agile” (to use the word of Vatican Radio). It was this that the Extraordinary Synod on the Family asked for last year. Well, now they have it, and rather more quickly than any of us had imagined. Also of note, bearing in mind the upcoming Synod, is this, in the original Italian: