I will always, always come down on the side of the Church when I can. I try and really find out about what the Catechism says about things so that I can make sense of them. Like, I used to not understand about why Catholics shouldn't use artificial birth control, it made NO sense to me, but it does now. I have done a lot of reading about it and, not to be lame, praying on it and I get it now. But I do not get this.
Why would the Catholic church annul a marriage that took place outside of the church? I recognize that a marriage is a marriage is a marriage to the Church, but I thought it was hard to get a marriage annulled. I thought there were specific reasons, like (and this might not be all of them but just off the top of my head) say, the person you married was crazy and didn't say that. Or say they claimed they wanted kids and then didn't. Or, abandonment is a big one.
I remember when my Uncle got married it was very important to him that his fiancee get her first marriage annulled because he wanted to get married in the Church. This was like 30 years ago and we were all on tenterhooks, would she get the annulment or not? But she did and they got married and all was well. But she had a daughter, my cousin, and I remember my sister and I saying, what happens to her? Where does a child fit in an annulment situation? The Catechism says that of course it doesn't make a child illegitimate but I wonder what does it mean, then?
I can see that if you get married in the Catholic church that the church should be responsible for that sacrament. I can see that if I got married to Mike and he said Ha ha! I didn't mean any of that RCIA stuff and I am never going to have a child and also I am a raging alcoholic and I beat my last wife to death, I could say, um, I can't be married to him anymore. BUT Mike and I went through pre-marriage counseling and we were encouraged to talk about everything. The church was responsible for it, they seemed to take it seriously and I did, too. So I can see how they would have jurisdiction over my marriage. But I don't see how they'd have jurisdiction over some marriage that took place outside of the Church. It doesn't make any sense.
I do wonder a few things - like, if you're not Catholic and your ex gets your marriage annulled in the Church, why does it matter? But there was some sort of court involved, could it be an actual court? Also, I was wondering about Joe Kennedy's divorce and annulment. I remember that he wanted it but his wife was against it, (she was Episcopalian but maybe their kids were Catholic? As Catholic as any Kennedy is, I guess?) and I just googled it and I had forgotten she wrote a whole BOOK about it but anyways, the Vatican has reversed his annulment. I didn't know that, nor did I know that he got married civilly, which, what the hell? Why did he care, then?
Anyways. I could see if we lived in Ireland before whenever they changed their No Divorce rule, or in some Catholically run country but the Church doesn't run the United States? Who cares what they think with regard to a marriage that didn't take place in their Church? I mean, I care, but I recognize that others do not, that other people aren't Catholic. I feel that way about birth control too. I mean, I get impatient with Catholics who purposely work against the rules of the church, and still consider themselves to be 'good Catholics' but if someone isn't Catholic? Why would I care about whether or not they use birth control? Sheesh.
Anyway. If anyone knows why the Church is involved in annulling marriages which they had no part of, let me know.
I don't know, either. The secretary who probably had to deal with all my impassioned letters on the topic finally jotted me a note saying something like "This is just so he can get married to a Catholic girl, that's all."
ReplyDeleteIt's not "all," though, to me. It's an enormous, established, recognized organization presuming to be in charge of whether my marriage was valid or not, and deciding "not." (Not in a legal court; it was a Catholic-church-run court, but with lawyers and a judge and everything.)
Here is why they do it, I am fairly sure: because they don't feel like they can back down on the "no divorces ever" thing---but so many Catholics want to get divorces. So there needs to be a way for them to get a divorce, yet remain Catholic. So annulments are Catholic divorces-that-are-definitely-NOT-divorces-because-we-said-divorce-is-wrong. And because a Catholic girl can't marry a divorced man, they have to give themselves jurisdiction also over non-Catholic marriages, so that he's no longer divorced. Voila. He can marry her.
As to why someone would care---I don't know if I can explain it, or if I know why. It helped one of my Catholic friends to understand my point of view when I had her imagine that some other religion (I chose one I knew she felt a bit outraged about in general) had decided HER marriage was up for a validity check, and had sent her ream upon ream of paperwork they insisted she fill out to prove it was valid, and then had decided it wasn't, despite what she said. I don't know if that would make everyone feel the same rage I felt or not, but it worked for her.
For me it's also such an extraordinary attack from my ex. He had our marriage declared invalid. He gave testimony to prove it was not a real marriage. But...it was. It was real. It ended very painfully, but/and it was a real marriage. It's incredibly hurtful to me that he would be willing to say it wasn't, to have it declared "Never Happened"---even if I think the organization that gave themselves the power to hear his case does not actually have that power.
P.S. I like you too. You helped talk me down from a bit of a ledge about that yesterday.