There's really nothing to elaborate. They both divorced their spouses in the 1960s, were Catholic & wanted to remarry in the Catholic Church.
When I was young & learned of the prohibition on divorced people receiving communion, I asked how they managed to get around it. I was told, in a "wink/nod" manner, they made a donation to the church.
they winked and nodded and received the Eucharist invalidly and sinfully....
P>Plus it's who you know........
My dad was raised a devout Catholic in Detroit, alter boy....etc....
My parents were married in 1949 when he graduated from MSU and divorced sometime around 1954 for reasons unknown to me. He never returned to the church because of that RULE that forbade him from getting divorced.
And on the other hand, there was a gal I worked with who got divorced back in the late 80's and whose mother was the secretary to the priest of their Catholic church. He was able to obtain a signed annulment of her marriage (or whatever it is that the Vatican issues) from the then Pope......