<p>This thread has meandered a lot. It’s obvious that it isn’t just the Church’s teachings on annulments that have sparked much of the participation in this thread. And I join in others in saying that I am appalled by the ignorance and Catholic -bashing on this board. </p>
<p>That said, I disagree with sjmom. I was raised to believe that “once a Catholic, always a Catholic” and I believe that. I can’t opt out. There’s that indelible mark on my soul that got there when I was baptised and whether I like it or not, it’s there.(Anyone else remember the milk bottle illustrations in the Baltimore Catechism?) I disagree with some Church positions, but I am still a Catholic. I go to mass. I’m on the envelope system 
and I participate in a few things my parish does. I switched parishes to find a more congenial one. My faith is important to me.But do I agree with everything the Church teaches? No. </p>
<p>I have been called a “cafeteria Catholic” more than once–often by people who have left the Church all together and are rather annoyed that I have not. I can’t. I could no more quit the Church than I could hack off my right arm. In some ways–yes, there are limits to the analogy, but I am trying to explain–it’s not unlike being an American. I am one. It is essential to my identity. However, that doesn’t mean that I agree with everything the president does or with every bill congress passes or with the way the income tax system works or with each and every law. </p>
<p>When I was a child, the Supreme Court of the US decided that a law which prohibited people of different races from marrying one another was unconstitutional. I was astonished. Why? Because I couldn’t imagine that there had been such a law. I was flabbergasted. I remember hearing the radio announce that news very, very vividly. It made a huge impression on me. It’s the first time I became aware that there were laws in America that were simply unjust. I was very young, and that thought was really, really scary to me. There are people who didn’t agree with the Constitution that a slave was 3/5s of a person even when those words were written. Did they forfeit the right to consider themselves American?</p>
<p>Many countries don’t allow you to opt out of being a citizen. I have a friend, born in Italy, of an American mother and Italian father. He grew up in Italy and left at 17 for the US, which considers him a citizen. (He was registered at birth.) But he never served in the Italian army and Italy has–or at least had–mandatory military service. He’d love to be able to say “I decided to be American, not Italian.” But Italy insists he is Italian. If he sets foot in Italy, he runs the risk of being imprisoned.</p>
<p>Church rules change. But core beliefs do not. Maybe someone made a mistake, but a long time ago, I was taught that if I could honestly and sincerely pray the Nicene Creed and mean every word of it, then I am a believing Catholic. There’s nothing in there about contraception or homosexual acts or abortion or whether women should be priests or the death penalty. As we all do, I have renewed my baptismal vows–and there’s nothing in those about abortion or homosexual acts or contraception either. So, I have no problem renewing those vows. I actually agree with the Church on most issues—though not all. But I don’t think the litany of these issues is what defines a Catholic.</p>
<p>I think God gave us brains to use them–and one of the things I like about Catholicism is that it stresses the roles of faith AND reason. If a Catholic in good faith has honestly tried to study and accept a teaching and just honestly can’t, then I don’t think that person has forfeited his or her right to be a Catholic. </p>
<p>Catholicism has two concepts of sin. One is objective. There is no debate in Catholicism about whether something is right or wrong. But the Church also teaches that intent is necessary to sin. To use the example a nun taught us a long time ago, Brazilian headhunters killed people and shrank their heads to honor their gods. They believed that was a morally good thing to do. Now killing people the way they did was wrong. Murder is a sin. But there are no Brazilan headhunters who did that to honor their gods in hell for having done that because they had no intention of doing wrong. (Later, a more sophisticated example was Queen Isabella of Spain who had Jews tortured so they would convert and thus save their souls. Now, there is no doubt that objectively what Isabella did was wrong. But if Isabella really did it because she thought that was the only way to save Jews from eternal damnation–and there’s no doubt that’s the case–then Isabella isn’t in hell for having done it.) </p>
<p>I have a lot more problem, personally, with Catholics who don’t believe in transubstantiation and take communion than I do with those who think it is wrong to impose Catholic views on abortion on others. ( I am anti-abortion, but I define abortion a little differently than the Church. I think life starts when the fertilized egg becomes inplanted in the uterine wall, not when egg and sperm unite, since a lot of fertilized cells never grow beyond that. So I don’t view the morning after pill as abortion if it is literally taken the morning after. I don’t think using an IUD is having an abortion either for that reason–but the Church says it is. But I digress.) Transubstantiation is a core belief. How many hours you have to wait between eating and receiving communion or how often you have to go to confession aren’t–at least to me. And neither are the Church’s teachings about annulments–although I really, really think the Church has been right to grant them. </p>
<p>I understand the views of those like sjmom who say that if a Catholic disagrees with the teachings of the Church about abortion (s)he has forfeited the right to be a Catholic, but I don’t agree. (Among other things, I believe that theologically, it is IMPOSSIBLE to forfeit the right to be Catholic.) I respect the opinion as long as those who hold it also say that anyone who supports the death penalty–which also violates the Church’s teaching and constitutes murder under Catholic teaching–has also forfeited the right to be a Catholic. If a Catholic politican should be denied communion for being pro-choice, than any Catholic governor who fails to exercise his executive power to stop an execution and every Catholic in a state legislature who votes for a state death penalty must also be denied communion in my view–and I personally think he’s committed a far greater sin. Realistically, Catholic polititians can’t stop abortions, but a Catholic governor can stay an execution and sometimes a vote is crucial and does decide whether a state has a death penalty. </p>
<p>In my view, those Catholics who don’t agree with supporting both those positions are defying Church dogma every bit as much as those who are personally opposed to abortion but think American law should allow it as an option. That putting someone to death for having committed a murder is itself a murder is every bit as central to Catholic teaching as that abortion is murder. </p>
<pre><code>Switching back to annulments, I lost respect for Ms. Rauch when I saw her statements about her victory in Rome. Once again, she persists in telling outright falsehoods. She claimed that you can get an annulment for “a bad hair day” or “because your goldfish died.” That’s preposterous. To me, it creates grave doubts about her motivation. If she honestly and sincerely believes that she had a valid sacramental marriage, then I respect her for fighting to validate her view. But if her goal was to change annulment procedures then I cannot respect her. She isn’t even Catholic, after all and even if she were she has NO right to judge the validity of the grounds advanced by OTHERS to annul marriages.
I know a lot of Catholics who have had their marriages annulled. In all but one case in which I actually know the grounds, I think that to call the marriage that existed a sacrament is blasphemy. (In the other case, I have my doubts, but I don’t think it’s my place to judge.) One widow remarried and discovered that her new husband was sexually molesting her daughter from her first marriage. Indeed, having access to the child was the real reason he had married her. Is that a “sacrament?” And believe me, that poor woman took a LOT of flack because she wasn’t about to go around telling everyone that her little girl had been repeatedly raped by her step-father. She just really thought (and I concur) that what happened to the child would become common knowledge among the children in her neighborhood if she did and a lot of them would ask her questions that would be very hard for the child to deal with. Is a marriage you were forced into because of a date rape a “sacrament?” Is a marriage in which the husband beats his wife 2-3 time a week and she ends up in a hospital because he threw her down a flight of concrete stairs a “sacrament?” Did anyone see the movie “A Beautiful Mind?” Is a marriage a valid sacrament if someone is mentally ill when you married them and you did not have a clue that he was? Is a marriage in which both people are alcoholics when they wed, one becomes sober and the other leaves him when he stops drinking because “you are no fun anymore and I don’t want anyone lecturing me about my drinking” a sacrament? Believe me, the poor guy almost took a drink again because he really, really loved his wife. She laid down the “law”–take this drink and gulp it down RIGHT NOW–or I’m walking out. And she did.
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<p>If you have the gift of a good marriage, appreciate it. If you have a less than wonderful marriage but aren’t afraid of your spouse, (s)he isn’t abusing drugs or booze, would never dream of sexually abusing your children, hasn’t a gambling problem that emptied your bank accounts and brought about the foreclosure of your home, but begs you for money for a “sure thing,” count yourself lucky. So many people think “you just have to work at a marriage.” Believe me, there are a heck of a lot of circumstances in which no matter how hard you try, it just isn’t going to work and you are never going to have a marriage which can be described as a sacrament. </p>
<p>I originally joined in this thread because of the errors regarding annulments in it. But as this thread has grown, it’s become clear that dke and cgm have no interest in really learning about the Church’s annulment proceeings. Instead, this news event has merely been a trigger for letting them vent their dislike for the Church. While I value free speech and unlike sjmom don’t think a moderator should step in, I also realize that I’m not performing the educational function I intended. So, I’ll bow out and let dke and cgm egg each other on with their Catholic-bashing, which is appalling.</p>