<p>Well said, sjmom. We crossposted…</p>
<p>I understand that it must be difficult to practice an orthodox version of any religion, Judaism included. I admire people like my brother in law who is a devout Catholic and follows his religion to the letter. I guess what I don’t understand is why someone would call themselves something if they have no intention of participating in it fully. It seems hypocritical to me.</p>
<p>“Mini, there’s nothing for City Hall to do regarding an annulment. It is strictly a Church issue, not a civil one. I assume you are being facetious?”</p>
<p>No, I really wasn’t being facetious. I tried as best I could to make that clear. If the Church annulled the marriage, does the couple still have to have a state-approved divorce? If they don’t, who pays child support? Are they both annulled AND divorced? Or are they still married in the eyes of the state regardless of what the Church does? Is Rudi Giuliani a bigamist in the eyes of the Church (first marriage annulled, second one wasn’t), and in the eyes of the state (first marriage annulled, but not by the state; second one ending in divorce)?</p>
<p>I really am trying to understand, and I am not being facetious - just ignorant.</p>
<p>Mini, this has already been answered. Your snarky little comments about taking the kiddies to City Hall to be turned into bastards belies any genuine interest in edification. Sadly, the direction of this Catholic themed thread hasn’t allowed you to work in your usual knee-jerk references to gay Popes. How disappointing for you…</p>
<p>Please post the answer. I really didn’t see it, and still don’t. For your “edification”, in California, I AM married under the “confidential marriage” statute, as the state wouldn’t allow two unrelated adults to adopt the same child, and they did not recognize our Pennsylvania Quaker marriage. My older one WAS (under California law) considered a “■■■■■■■” until then (this was in 1990). So, please, it would behoove you to know something about that which you speak.</p>
<p>As for the openly and proudly gay popes, I’m glad you got that one in.</p>
<p>mini, </p>
<p>First, while family law varies from state to state, as far as I know, there is no state in the Union–and hasn’t been for at least 100 years–that considers a child born after the parents marry each other a b****** or illegitimate. Legally, if your folks marry after the contractions start but before you make your appearance, you are legitimate. </p>
<p>I’m guessing but California probably didn’t recognize your Quaker marriage because there was no officiant. Usually, the cleric who performs the marriage is ALSO licensed by the state. If he isn’t, it’s NOT a legal marriage in most states, even though religiously it may be perfectly valid religiously. (In the Roman Catholic Church, the parties to the marriage marry themselves; the priest is just the witness. This goes even further in the Marianite Rite, which is part of the Catholic Church too. The priest who is the witness for Church purposes is the officiant for state law purposes.) In many European countries, you MUST go through a civil ceremony to be legally married. If you want to get married in a religious ceremony, you can, but the priest, minister, rabbi, etc. is NOT licensed to perform marriages for the state. </p>
<p>Second, states grant civil annulments. These don’t make children born during the marriage illegitimate, so canon law is not unusual it stating that an annulment doesn’t have this effect. </p>
<p>Third, as others have explained, the Church system and the state law system are two separate entities and the decisions of one have no effect on the decisons of the other. As a practical matter though, in the US the Catholic Church does not grant annulments unless the parties are already divorced legally. Thus, in the US at least, the issue of whether you need a civil divorce if you get a Church annulment never comes up. You cannot get an annulment unless you have a divorce. </p>
<p>Here is an article from wikipedia that explains some of these concepts well, IMO:</p>
<p><a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annulment[/url]”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annulment</a></p>
<p>Thanks.</p>
<p>So, if I understand your first point, children born of an annulled marriage are legitimate. The subpoint is that California DID consider my older daughter “illegitimate” until a certificate of confidential marriage was obtained (in 1990). I think it is the only state in which this is true (and some of the palimony and inheritance suits are nothing short of breathtaking.)</p>
<p>If I understand your second and third points, the Church annulment is itself null in the eyes of the state unless the couple also receive a state annulment or divorce. So a person who has a marriage annulled in the Church, but not by the state, is legally a bigamist unless a state annulment/divorce is also obtained.</p>
<p>As I read the article (and that’s all I am going on), it is quite possible for the Church to annul a long-term marriage where offspring were produced, but have the state refuse to issue an annulment and require a divorce, because none of the 9 conditions are met.</p>
<p>the Catholic church process of annulment is totally seperate from any legal process</p>
<p>the state is legal, the Church is, well, not</p>
<p>what I find amusing is that all of us here can get a minister’s license so we can perform weddings, and we can make our own rules about annulments, etc in our little religion</p>
<p>but the couple still has to register with the state, etc in order to be legally married</p>
<p>so if a person gets married in a church, but never turns in the paperwork, he is not legally a bigamist, a jerk and a fraud, sure, but legally, he is not really married</p>
<p>with common law marriage, and implied contracts etc., the legal realm is gray, not black and white, but whatever happens in the church has no relevance at all in the legal and contractual world</p>
<p>a church could say, well, after 5 years, you need to renew or you are no longer married in the church, but that means nothing to the state</p>
<p>Mini,</p>
<p>As jonri pointed out, the Church is not going to annul a marriage unless the couple is already divorced. A civil divorce comes first.</p>
<p>With regard to your statement: “So a person who has a marriage annulled in the Church, but not by the state, is legally a bigamist unless a state annulment/divorce is also obtained.”, the marriage wouldn’t have been annulled before the civil divorce but, for the sake of argument, let’s say it did. The person would have to marry in a second civil marriage before you could legally call them a bigamist.</p>
<p>mini, don’t you think you are being a little silly here? A civil divorce is a requirement for annulment, so it’s not possible for a marriage to be annuled while the parties are still legally married.<br>
<a href=“http://www.idotaketwo.com/christian_remarriage.html[/url]”>http://www.idotaketwo.com/christian_remarriage.html</a></p>
<p>now lets add to the mix, Covenent Marriages- a new kind of marriage, and legal, contract…</p>
<p><a href=“http://marriage.about.com/cs/covenantmarriage/a/covenant.htm[/url]”>http://marriage.about.com/cs/covenantmarriage/a/covenant.htm</a></p>
<p>I would run from that</p>
<p>I remember going to talk to my husband’s priest about our “interfaith” marriage (I’m an Episcopalian). We had to jump through hoops before he would bless it, and I was getting pretty frosted. I kept thinking about a guy in my office who left his wife and four children for a pretty young gal in our same office. He was a parishioner at the parish where we were getting our marital counselling. This fellow married the gal, got his marriage annulled by this same priest, and they had a nice big white wedding. I kept thinking about the wife and four kids and how she must have felt. I found myself asking the priest how an annulment was obtained. Needless to say, he doesn’t like me very much! “You’re here for premarital counselling,and you’re already asking about annullments??” oh well.</p>
<p>dke, That’s hilarious!! Going to the priest for premarital counseling and asking him how to get an annullment! LOL :D</p>
<p>dke,</p>
<p>First, I may be throwing fire on the flames, but the priest did not “bless” your marriage. In the eyes of the Church you were not married at all until you were married in the Catholic Church because your husband is Catholic and without a dispensation can ONLY validly marry in the Catholic Church. Moreover, in the eyes of the Church, he didn’t “used to be” a Catholic. He may be a non-practicing Catholic; he may be an unbelieving Catholic. But once he was baptized, he is ALWAYS a Catholic. There is no opt out clause. </p>
<p>Second, if you read the links that I and others have posted, you will realize that a parish priest can NOT grant an annulment. It is HIGHLY unlikely that he had anything whatsoever to do with the proceedings. (Very few parish priests are canon lawyers. They take the input form and send you off to the Marriage Tribunal. In truth, many are wholly ignorant of the procedures involved.) Moreover, before an annulment can be granted, the Church must be satisfied that the spouse has met his/her obligations to the putative wife and legitimate children from the prior marriage. </p>
<p>Third, in answer to your D’s question: Henry VIII, the King of England, had an older brother,Arthur, who was expected to become king. This brother married Catherine of Aragon, D of the King of Spain. Then he died. (PG-13 version follows.) The English didn’t think it would be nice to ship Catherine back to her father as a widow. In those days, not many princes wanted to marry princesses who had been married before. </p>
<p>The simple solution was for Catherine to marry Henry. That way, she would still become the Queen of England, as everyone expected. But Church law–I think Episcopalians had the same rule–prohibits men from marrying the widows of their brothers. (This was a change from Jewish law at the time of Our Lord, when it was common that if a man died leaving a widow and he had an unmarried brother, the brother would marry his widow.)</p>
<p>So, the English asked the pope for an exception. He agreed to give it to them so that Henry could marry Catherine. (Yes, there were political considerations, but as I said this is the PG version.) The pope agreed that these were very unusual circumstances–not many people get married to someone expecting to become a queen. So, he said, okay, you can get married. </p>
<p>Henry and Catherine married. Catherine had a daughter who was named Mary, but she didn’t have a male baby. Henry wanted a son because he thought girls made lousy rulers; whoever married the queen would end up running things. He wanted a son he could train to do things his way. He also fell in love with a woman named Anne Boelyn… He wanted to marry her. He argued that he was entitled to an annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon because she had been married to his brother and that was prohibited. The Pope (Clement) said you got special permission and the marriage is valid. NO ANNULMENT. </p>
<p>Henry said that G-d’s law prohibited his marriage to Catherine and the pope didn’t have the power to grant the exception or dispensation he’d gotten to marry her. The pope said yes he did and the marriage was valid. So, Henry made himself the head of the Church so he could make his own rules and marry Anne. Today, the Queen (or King) of England is still called “the Defender of the Faith” as one of her titles. The Queen is the head of the Church of England.</p>
<p>Henry married Anne. She had a daughter named Elizabeth. Then she had baby boy. He was deformed and would never grow up to be a person capable of ruling England. Nobody knows for sure whether the child died naturally or Henry had him killed. Lots of people felt that God was punishing Henry for disobeying G-d’s law and committing adultery with Anne. So Henry claimed it was all Anne’s fault and the child was deformed because Anne was a witch! He also said she had been having sex with someone else. So he had her killed.</p>
<p>Henry married six more women after Anne. I THINK there was at least one son, but he died young. In any event, after Henry died, Catherine’s daughter Mary became queen. Not surprisingly, Mary was Catholic–she didn’t like the fact Henry had made himself head of a new English church to get rid of her mom. She tried to turn back the clock and make England Catholic again, but it didn’t work very well.</p>
<p>Then she died. Anne’s daughter Elizabeth became queen. She was one of the strongest, smartest rulers of her day. Henry’s concerns that her husband would control things turned out to be groundless because Elizabeth never married. She made a lot of men think she might marry them when she wanted them to do something, but she never married. However, she was more than willing to undo the effort her half sister Mary had made to make England Catholic again because after all, according to the Church her parents had never been married, so she couldn’t be queen. </p>
<p>After the American Revolution, the Americans who belonged to the Church of England didn’t want to recognize the king of England as head of the church. So they broke off and created a church that was just like the Church of England except for that. They called themselves Episopalians. </p>
<p>As for what the Church teaches, I’d suggest that you and your daughter buy a copy of The Catechism of the Catholic Church or get it from the library. It will explain what Catholics believe.</p>
<p>And, yes, this is very simplified history. I don’t deny that.</p>
<p>One of the misconceptions people have is they associate all Protestant faiths with the Anglican Church, or the Episcopalian Church. Whereas Protestant faiths, such as Lutheranism, had little or nothing to do with the wheres, whys, and hows of the Church of England. In many cases, the Protestant sects were persecuted just as much as Catholics by the adherents of the Anglican Church. The histories of most Protestant faiths for the most part have little or nothing to do with Henry VIII’s problems.</p>
<p>Plus, Katherine asserted that her first marriage to Arthur was not consummated, which paved the way for her to marry Henry. Henry no doubt knew this to be untrue, as did many people, but looked the other way for political reasons. Then, when the going got rough (when he decided to throw her out for Anne), the whole thing was brought up again. Of course, because Arthur was dead, there was no proving it one way or another, so Katherine’s word stood. There was also a lot more politics involved than just morality on the part of the church, including alliances among France, Spain, the Holy Roman Empire, Scotland, England, etc…</p>
<p>Oh, doubleplay, I totally agree! As I said, this was a very simplified history. I posted this in answer to dke’s #77. </p>
<p>But, there’s a lot of doubt that Catherine’s marriage to Arthur was consummated. There is some evidence that Catherine wasn’t a virgin when she married Henry, but it’s not so sure that she had intercourse with Arthur. (As I said, this is the PG version.)</p>
<p>Thanks, Jonri, for not only explaining the origin of my church to me, but my wedding circumstances as well. It was most helpful. We did get a dispensation and were married in the Episcopal church with the grouchy priest suffering through it. My husband calls himself a lapsed Catholic and believes that since he doesn’t follow the rules of Catholicism he can’t rightfully call himself one, baptised or not.</p>
<p>there are tens of thousands of unofficial annulments done every year by local priests so that marriages can take place…they just ignore the rules</p>
<p>do some more reading, what happens “officially” is very different from reallity</p>
<p>and yes, if a person wants to say they are no longer Catholic, then they are no longer Cathloic, babtised or not, who is to say otherwise and who has that right</p>
<p>the Church, so what if they say I am still a member of their club, if I say I am not, that is enough</p>
<p>Actually, Catherine of Aragon gave birth to two sons, but neither lived past 2-3 months. She also had other still-born children and miscarrriages.
I agree with Doubleplay that many of the Protestant denominations have totally different origins than Henry VIII politico-amorous shenanigans.</p>