<p>according to Catholic “rules” the girl can be 14 to marry…hmmmm</p>
<p>citygirlsmom:</p>
<p>This is not unique to the Catholic church. Indeed, many states in the US allow girls to be married before 16 with the consent of their parents.
Stop bashing the Catholic church over this.</p>
<p>Age of consent, world wide:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.avert.org/aofconsent.htm[/url]”>http://www.avert.org/aofconsent.htm</a></p>
<p>that doesn’t make it right, for an organization that is so for marriage, that the age for a girl is 14, while for a boy it is 16</p>
<p>no sexism there</p>
<p>as for bashing, gee facts are facts</p>
<p>and ya notice that in MOST cases the age is the same, not where the female its two years younger</p>
<p>and if you look at the age, 14 is on the LOW side in most countries, who are at 16 (with some 15)</p>
<p>don’t say I am bashing when I am sharing facts</p>
<p>and your site is about sex and also talks about age difference, not marriage sanctioned by the church, who seems to rather have people get married at 14 then heaven forbid have sex at 18 not married</p>
<p>"Seriously, does one take a Church annulment document and go with the kiddies to City Hall so that they recognize the annulment "</p>
<p>I reckon it would work about as well as a get out of hell free card signed by the governor.</p>
<p>“according to Catholic “rules” the girl can be 14 to marry…hmmmm”</p>
<p>In Islam I believe it is 9. Apostacy is also a capital offence.</p>
<p>In many states in the US it is possible to marry before the age of 18 or even 16 with parental consent. And the minimum age to be married with parental consent is not specified. Nothing to do with the Catholic church.</p>
<p><a href=“http://marriage.about.com/cs/teenmarriage/a/teenus.htm[/url]”>http://marriage.about.com/cs/teenmarriage/a/teenus.htm</a></p>
<p>“Legally, if your folks marry after the contractions start but before you make your appearance, you are legitimate.”</p>
<p>Interestingly that is true in most states even if you couldn’t possibly be the father. If your wife can squeeze the kid out before the divorce decree becomes final you are stuck with the child support payments even if you have been out of the country a decade.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Yuck. What a dehumanizing concept of womanhood.</p>
<p>“Yuck. What a dehumanizing concept of womanhood.”</p>
<p>Well from what I have seen of childbirth I don’t know how else you would describe the process.</p>
<p>cgmom,</p>
<p>I am very sorry that the Church did not meet your spiritual needs. From the tone of your comments, it appears that your break from the Church was pretty painful. What else would explain the bitterness/cynicism? Since you no longer consider yourself Catholic, why do you care about Church law/rules that no longer apply to you? Unless your purpose is to point out to us remaining Catholics that we are misguided. Frankly, your spiritual journey is your business and I wish you well. But please, do not mock mine.</p>
<p>What, I pointed out FACTS!@!!! I can’t help what some states do, or what other countries do, BUT I can make comments about an instution that is hypocritcal on so many levels</p>
<p>I am not mocking you, I am discussing the FACTS of an institution that talks about family and then says its okay for 14 year olds to marry and at the same time, covered up child abuse for decades</p>
<p>The religion is represented by men, not women, but men that have no real life experiences, and those that want that, are kicked out</p>
<p>What is not factual about anything I have stated…</p>
<p>So perhaps you’ll tell us what the age of marriage has to do with the Kennedy on and off annulment? Or the Catholic church with the 40-year old coach marrying a 14-year old?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Is the “that doesn’t make it right” a fact or your opinion?</p>
<p>Wow. I really hit a nerve. Obviously, you can make any comments you want. I just wonder if you point out hypocrisy in other facets of society as vociferously as you do against the Church. Suffice it to say, I don’t agree that everything you have presented are facts.</p>
<p>For example: you wrote: “The religion is represented by men, not women, but men that have no real life experiences, and those that want that, are kicked out.” Most men that are presently in the seminary are much older than they once were. They have many varied life experiences which I think are valuable to the Church. A recent seminarian in our parish was a young widower whose wife had died of cancer. He is a parish priest now.</p>
<p>Should 14-years olds get married? Generally speaking, of course not. But just because a rule exists that allows it, how often do you really think it occurs? And is it for you or I to judge if the marriage of an individual 14 year old should take place? I think the place for that decision would be between her and her family. No priest is going to witness the marriage of a 14 year old without scrutiny.</p>
<p>The sex abuse scandal and its decades long coverup were deplorable and criminal. No argument there. But the vast majority of priests are good and decent men who have devoted their lives to the spiritual needs of their parishioners. </p>
<p>I guess my problem with your “facts” is that they paint the entire Church with broad-brushed generalizations that do not take into account all that is good about the faith.</p>
<p>re Posts ##92, 98
dke, you wrote:</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”</p>
<p>Now, I guess you used the word bless to mean something other than what I understood. For Catholics, the phrase to “bless” a marriage is an idiomatic expression meaning to marry in the Church after having been married legally in another ceremony–which can be either religious or civil. It would not be used by most Catholics to mean to get a dispensation to be married in another faith. Priests tend to get angry when Catholics use this idiom because according to Catholic theology you aren’t having a pre-existing marriage “blessed;” you are getting married for the first time. </p>
<p>So, I misunderstood you because the word you used means something to me that it doesn’t mean to you. To me, the words you used mean that you were already legally married when you talked to the priest. It’s kind of like walking into a diner in Southern New England and asking for a milk shake. That’s what you’ll get–milk beaten in a blender with flavoring. No ice cream. If you want that, you have to say frappe. I’m belaboring it, but I am just trying to explain that I just misunderstood you. I thought you were already married because that’s what it means to me when someone says she wanted a priest to “bless” a marriage. </p>
<p>I wrote mostly because you said you were angry in part because this priest gave an annulment to a parishioner with four children and this SAME priest married them. ONE priest cannot give an annulment at all. It’s unheard of for someone’s pastor to sit on the marriage tribunal. It just doesn’t happen. I wanted to point that out not because I wanted to criticize you but because in this thread we are discussing --or at least I am discussing–Catholic teaching about annulments. You were criticizing a priest for doing something he cannot possibly have done. </p>
<p>And, if you want to correct what I wrote about the origins of the Episcopal church, you are of course free to do so.</p>
<p>I would also point out that the Episcopal Church has an annulment process which, based on what I have been told, is very, very similar to the Catholic one.</p>
<p>The same priest who married the fellow to his new girlfriend got the annullment process started for the first wife. Did he annul the marriage? Of course not, but you know what I mean. No reason to mince words. If the Episcopal church has an annulment process I can’t think of anyone who would ever bother doing it. It must be from the Dark Ages.</p>
<p>
So he handed the man a phone number? Told him to look up the process on the Archdiocese website? </p>
<p>You make it sound as if he sneakily freed up his buddy to have a big church wedding with a trophy wife or something. As Jonri & Illinois mom have stated, annulments are not done at the parish level. I would recommend that anyone who finds the Catholic Church’s practices “hypocritical” or offensive join another church. Or worship the sun and the moon or the fairy living in your backyard oak tree. Whatever works for you is O.K. by me. Why the need to pick apart a church based procedure that has absolutely no impact on or meaning to anyone except those Catholics involved?</p>
<p>Concerning Episcopal Canon Law regarding marriage, divorce, remarriage and annulment: </p>
<p><a href=“(WFsites) - Page not found”>(WFsites) - Page not found;
<p>Yes, I found the article. I’m mistaken. I apologize for the error. The person who explained it to me is an Anglican priest (resident in the US), so perhaps the C of E does? But in any event, I’m wrong. (After rereading it, he may just have been very out of date. His own first marriage was annuled.)</p>