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<a href=“http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,285096,00.html[/url]”>http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,285096,00.html</a></p>
<p>So, is Joe Kennedy now married to two women or is he married to his first wife and committing adultery with this second woman? Can’t figure this one out.</p>
<p>church annulment is NOT the same as a legal divorce, what the church does has nothing to do with the legal documents registered at city hall</p>
<p>guess you missed this part</p>
<p>“Rauch and Kennedy, the eldest son of the late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, were granted a civil divorce in 1991.”</p>
<p>do you understand the difference between the church and the law?
the church is meaningless when it comes to the legal definition of marriage and divorce</p>
<p>they can say you were married or never married, morally, but that has nothing to do with bigamy</p>
<p>you and fox just trying to make a story where there is none</p>
<p>Razorsharp: I am quite certain you think Joe Kennedy is worse than a bigamist, probably a lover of animals or something. Tee hee hee.</p>
<p>Seriously, though, did you bring this up with anything other than a full sense of irony? I sincerely hope so.</p>
<p>
Of course, of course; but we are talking about something higher than the law – the law of God.</p>
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Yes it is ironic; but under Catholic church law, what is he? Someone engaged in bigamy or adultery? Doesn’t this whole thing seem a little strange?</p>
<p>I worry more about unwise choices in committing infantry than I do adultery.</p>
<p>not the law of God, for heavens sake, the law of some old guys in a church, who changed their minds</p>
<p>who says that this is now the right decision, and the first was wrong? </p>
<p>he remarried, and he got the annulment, the church men flipflopped, imagine that</p>
<p>Kennedy married his second wife in a civil ceremony, which presumably is not recognized by the Church.</p>
<p>So he’s not a bigamist.</p>
<p>In the eyes of the Church, he would be living in sin with the 2nd wife if his first marriage is not annulled.</p>
<p>I believe the Church would say he is an adulterer, and should not receive Communion. The weird part of this is that he ever got an annulment in the first place! After twelve years of marriage and two children, it’s hard for me to see that this was not a real marriage. The real issue, in my mind, is how much influence the Kennedy’s had over the Archdiocese of Boston.
<a href=“http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2007/06/21/vatican_reverses_kennedy_ruling/[/url]”>http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2007/06/21/vatican_reverses_kennedy_ruling/</a></p>
<p>This is just another case of a powerful/wealthy man who wanted to dump wife #1 for the new one, and didn’t want to suffer any of the consequences. I say, good for Sheila Rauch.</p>
<p>an example of silly church doctrine/dogma.</p>
<p>What’s so hard about this? The original quote tells you the important point to answer the question:</p>
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</p>
<p>They were divorced. He remarried. Under U.S. law he’s good to go.</p>
<p>It only gets confusing – as things all so often do – when you try to reconcile reality with Church law.</p>
<p>Even then, keep in mind that after his legal divorce, he later also sought an annulment, unbeknownst to the woman he had divorced. If he hadn’t sought the annulment he wouldn’t be a bigamist. So the fact that it was reversed doesn’t change anything as a legal matter. He’s just divorced and remarried…an institution that the Catholic Church pretty much regards as its one unforgiveable sin.</p>
<p>Don’t get me wrong. I’m a big fan of marriage, despite only drinking from that cup but once. I’ve seen lots of messy divorces and, as a rule, I abhor them whenever kids are involved. But I’ve seen plenty of good people get divorced, too, and in a few cases with children caught in the middle, I’ve even come to see it as the best option. Yet, among my Catholic – and some Protestant – friends who fall under this auspicious umbrella, they are regarded by their spiritual communities as less welcome than a confessed murderer (though arguably more welcome than a pedophile). </p>
<p>The Sacrament of Reconciliation (a/k/a penance, confession) seemingly doesn’t erase the sin because, it seems, that a second marriage is the sin…not the first divorce. And, unless people reunite with their first spouse, that makes divorce-and-remarriage perhaps the only unforgiveable sin. It’s still legal in the U.S., though, last time I looked.</p>
<p>By the way, good for her!</p>
<p>
This statement is a big stinking load of you know what. </p>
<p>Yes, divorce in religious communities is not celebrated. But who in the world would believe that divorce is more serious than murder to those parishoners? What hogwash.</p>
<p>You beat me to it, SS!</p>
<p>To TheDad</p>
<p>“I worry more about unwise choices in committing infantry than I do adultery.”</p>
<p>What great use of the language……I plan to steal this line and use it whenever appropriate…… great use of the language</p>
<p>I don’t think the story here is that they were divorced. Happens all the time.</p>
<p>I don’t think the story her is that the marrigage was annulled by the Catholic Church, which also happens all the time.</p>
<p>The story is that he used family influence to get the annullment. I think one would be safe in presuming that the Kennedy family has some sway with the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston. I am not sure I have heard of an annullment before where there were two children from the marriage. I wonder what basis was used for granting the annullment.</p>
<p>He certainly is not a bigamist!</p>
<p>If we are going to start calling people names for partisan political proposes we should not fail to mention the fact that Nancy Reagan’s mother and natural father were never married….so in the eyes of the law and the church she would be considered a ■■■■■■■.</p>
<p>What are you talking about? Nancy Reagan’s parents divorced in 1928–I wonder why they bothered getting a divorce if they were never married? 
</p>
<p>What are you talking about? Nancy Reagan’s parents divorced in 1928–I wonder why they bothered getting a divorce if they were never married? </p>
<p>hereshoping…</p>
<p>that’s big news… tell me where you got this information from…if it is true, that Nancy Reagan’s mother and natural father were married and got a divorce, a lot of sources reporting that they were never married need to be corrected…I will be the first to send this news, if true, to several sites…where and how can this version of history be verified?</p>
<p>It is the reference in the original post to the marriage to his second wife in a civil ceremony that prevents the conundrum for the church.</p>
<p>Had he been remarried in the church (which as a result of his annulment could have happened) and then had his annulment reversed - the church would have had to deal with two wives. My guess - and its only a guess - is that in such a situation when the church reversed the original annulment, it would also have declared an annulment of the second marriage.</p>
<p>“The story is that he used family influence to get the annullment. I think one would be safe in presuming that the Kennedy family has some sway with the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston.” </p>
<p>The story to me was that the annullment was granted against the wishes of the first wife. Of course, if it hadn’t mattered to Mr. Kenendy in the religious sense, then he would have just stuck with the divorce. Not a bigamist, not in this context an adulterer, but this isn’t nice.</p>