From left to right: the psychiatrists of the Clínica Universidad de Navarra Jorge Plá and Adrián Cano, and the canonist José Antonio Fuentes. PHOTO: Courtesy

The School of Canon Law of the University of Navarra organized the seminar for professors 'Schizophrenia and capacity for marriage: a point of meeting between psychiatry and law'.

It had an interdisciplinary character and was attended by professors from Canon Law, psychiatrists and members of ecclesiastical courts (Pamplona, La Rioja and Jaca).

In the first session, Drs. Jorge Pla and Adrián Cano (psychiatrists and professors of Forensic Psychiatry at School of Canon Law of the University of Navarra), presented the description of the disease. They showed among other things its variability, the different forms of onset and the different prognoses. They summarized some medical cases to illustrate their explanations.

This was followed by a lunch at work with all the participants.

At 3.15 p.m. the second session took place, in which Professor José Antonio Fuentes summarized the current status of canonical doctrine and the jurisprudence of the tribunals of the Roman Rota (of the Rotals Boccafola and Monier) and of the Rota of the Nunciature of Madrid (of the Rotals García Faílde, Gil de las Heras and Panizo). He summarized causes of nullity in which the schizophrenic disease had been diagnosed years after the marriage bond had been established.

This was followed by a wide-ranging dialogue in which professors, judges and doctors participated.