Should we get rid of annulments?
Annulments after all are an innovation. The Orthodox, for example do not offer annulments. Add to this the number of marriages declared invalid due to lack of form, a judicial requirement and not one essential to the Sacrament of Marriage. It would seem more fundamentally honest to say the Church will look the other way as couples remarry rather than to claim that nearly every marriage that doesn’t work out wasn’t really a marriage, no matter how many children suffer because of it.
I had attempted to keep my disgust quiet, but I’ve really had it. Our latest celebrity convert Newt Gingrich has a decorated history. While his wife was being treated with cancer, he was having an affair with the woman who would become his second wife. His current wife was the result of adultery with his 2nd wife. Being the good Catholic girl she was though – excuse me, I forgot to insert a devout in there too – she couldn’t marry the guy with whom she was sleeping until Newt’s annulment was rubber stamped. Being that Mrs. Gingrich II married Newt after having failed at marriage once, the annulment was a rubber stamp. Having been so impressed by his current wife’s piety, he finally joined the Catholic Church and has appointed himself spokesman for all that is good and holy. To this, the usually suspects give an amen and thank God for Newt’s libido finally finding a Catholic girl to satiate it and leading him to the Church. Quite frankly the whole thing makes me sick and smacks of the Church making natural marriage a joke.
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