"A Church annulment, which can only be sought after a civil divorce is final, is a declaration that the marriage was not spiritually binding," Zubik explained in a letter to some 633,000 Catholics that was released Wednesday. To receive an annulment, a church tribunal must determine that a spiritual marriage wasn't present from the outset, perhaps because one spouse never intended to be faithful or was too immature to understand the permanence of marriage. The Pittsburgh diocese said it typically took in $120,000 annually in annulment fees, which only covered part of the cost of "maintaining a professional office of canon lawyers and support staff, and other expenses involved in processing the cases," the diocese said in a news release. A recent capital campaign is enabling the church to cover two-thirds of the money previously brought in by annulment fees, with the rest coming from a program in which individual churches contribute toward diocesan administrative costs.