By Thea Jarvis

Sister Frances Whitman didn’t even know what a Metropolitan Tribunal did when she learned they needed help at the old Catholic Center on Fourth Street 15 years ago.

As a student at Georgia State University doing coursework in gerentology, Sister Whitman was looking for part-time employment to support her order of Grey Nuns.

“Our community is small and not very rich,” she laughed, remembering the convoluted course to her current Tribunal office, now located on the third floor of the Catholic Center on West Peachtree Street. The Tribunal is the archdiocesan court which considers requests for marriage annulments.

Sister Whitman’s background had been in education. With a master’s level degree in that field, she served as principal of Immaculate Heart of Mary School from 1971 to 1975 and taught middle grades for three years before.

“I started in two days a week” doing clerical work for the Tribunal, she said. “It gradually grew” into a full-time job.

In time, she attended summer institutes at Catholic University in Washington, studying both fundamental theories and advanced procedures of tribunal work. The openness and cooperation of her co-workers, she said, helped in the learning process.

“Most of my training is practical, hands-on experience,” said Sister Whitman, explaining that her current duties include intake evaluations of nullity petitions, interviews with petitioners and ongoing meetings with other staff members involved in the petitioning process.

“We are constantly upgrading the process, keeping the process moving,” she said. “It has to be canonically correct, but we try to be as open as possible. We’re not just a ‘mill.’ Everything has to be handled as an individual case.”

Sister Whitman sometimes acts as a procurator advocate for the respondent – the other party – in the annulment process. As the petitioner or claimant has the opportunity to voice his feelings, so must the respondent be given a chance to be heard.

“I often oversee a case for respondents (in order) to protect their rights,” she said.

In 1990, over 800 petitions for nullity were presented to the Metropolitan Tribunal, although not all were followed through on by the claimants.

“Sometimes people decide they’re not ready. We don’t encourage them if they’re not. It’s their case, not the Tribunal’s,” she said.

The positive side of the annulment process, she feels, is the way it “puts closure on a very unhappy phase of someone’s life. This is a service of reconciliation.”

An Atlanta native who was baptized at Sacred Heart Church and attended Christ the King elementary and high school, the soft-spoken Religious is enthusiastic about her work and quick to point out the health nature of the service the Tribunal renders.

Those who come to the Tribunal “are already moving into a whole new area of life,” she believes. “It’s a very positive thing that they’re doing, moving out of what was sad and hurtful toward where they see light coming.”

Petitioners are usually “still emotionally tender,” but the process of annulment is one that helps them work through the pain. “You can’t go around it. You have to go through it,” Sister Whitman said. “We give the opportunity to do that.”

Tribunal work has given her a unique spiritual perspective on human growth and interaction.

“Human relationships are much more important than we’ve given them credit for. We have to keep maturing; we’re never fully mature. We need to keep growing.”

A sense of journey of life, the developmental nature of persons and relationships is a gift she has received in her time at the Tribunal.

“It’s amazing the freedom that comes when you understand that things have to develop,” she said. Those who come to the Tribunal are “seeking, looking, trying to find how best they can put their lives in order.”

At 64, Sister Whitman is no stranger to such a process. Her personal journey let her through college and business school, a banking career and jobs with a variety of high-powered Atlanta architectural firms before she applied for admission to the Grey Nuns at the age of 35.

The warmth and support of her community has enabled her to grow and contribute her gifts within the church. This is what she passes on in her Tribunal work.

“People have to be realistic to be spiritually healthy and mature,” Sister Whitman said. “We are helping them reach that level of maturity.”