Roman Catholics hoping to get their marriages annulled will be subject to a simplified process as Pope Francis is set to announce streamlined procedures for such judgments on Tuesday, The Associated Press reported.

Marriage is forever under the denomination's doctrine, but a Church tribunal can grant Catholics an annulment if the union had some inherent defect from the start. Valid reasons may include that the couple never intended their marriage to last or that one of the spouses did not want children.

But Catholics have complained that the process can take much time and money, and Francis has noted on several occasions that there was a need for reform, according to the Washington Post.

"The sacraments give us grace," the pontiff said earlier this year to jurists of the church's final court of appeals for annulments. "And a marriage proceeding touches on the sacrament of marriage."

Currently, getting an annulment can take years and can costs hundreds or thousands of dollars for legal and tribunal fees.

"How I wish all marriage proceedings were free of charge," Francis noted.

The two decrees the leader of the world's more than one billion Catholics plans to issue this week -- titled "Mitis Iudex Dominus Iesus" and "Mitis et misericors Iesus" -- will likely do away with procedures Francis has decried as "long and so burdensome," the National Catholic Reporter noted.

The documents will be presented at a midday press conference held by Cardinal Francesco Coccopalmerio, who leads a Vatican council on legislative texts; Archbishop Luis Ferrer, the secretary of the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith; and Monsignor Pio Vito Pinto, who presided the special commission appointed by Francis to study annulment reform.

Though the specifics of the reform were still unknown, Francis may roll back a 1980s provision involving a second diocese in an applicant's annulment procedure, Monsignor Kevin Irwin, the dean of the School of Theology and Religious Studies at Catholic University.

"Certainly, Pope John Paul and Benedict wanted to tighten the way people got annulments. They thought it was too easy," Irwin noted. "(But) Maybe Francis is going to take (that additional layer) away."