Posted on 07/02/2004 9:06:02 AM PDT by PJ-Comix
CAMBRIDGE -- U.S. Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy II made one of his few public appearances in Massachusetts yesterday since his annulment dispute became public, but he continued to insist it was a private matter. 
"I'm not going to start commenting on all of the various issues that have been brought up," a subdued Rep. Kennedy said after recognizing the winners of local Small Business Administration awards. "I just feel that these are personal family matters and I think that I will continue to try to treat them as such," he said.
In a book to be published next month, the Democrat's first wife, Sheila Rauch Kennedy, contends that Rep. Kennedy often called her a "nobody" during their 12-year marriage and that by its end in 1991, she was afraid of him. The book also takes aim at the Catholic annulment process. Rep. Kennedy has been granted an annulment of their marriage. But Sheila Kennedy contends it will cast a shadow over her entire relationship with Rep. Kennedy and the lives of their twin sons. Accordingly, she has appealed the decision. "An annulment says that there never was a true marriage in the eyes of God. I don't know about you, but I took our marriage very seriously," Sheila Kennedy told the congressman in a conversation recounted in her book, "Shattered Faith." "Of course I think we had a true marriage." she said he answered. "But that doesn't matter now. I don't believe this stuff. Nobody actually believes it. It's just Catholic gobbledygook, Sheila." The story, which first surfaced two weeks ago, took a turn this past week when the former wife of U.S. Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., revealed that he is now seeking an annulment of their marriage. Sen. Kerry's ex-wife, Julia Thorne, does not plan to fight the annulment, although she, too, was critical of what she labeled a "hypocritical" process. Rep. Kennedy, who is planning to run for governor next year, said he was unsure what effect the story might have on his career. "I think that this is much more of a human story and a family story, and it's not one that I think about in terms of its political effect," he said. Rep. Kennedy also would not say whether he thought his stature or office played a role in him getting the annulment. "I don't want to start down the road of answering a lot of questions about the annulment process," he said. "I think that these are issues that are very much personal in nature and between myself, my family and my church. You can find out the statistics in terms of the number of annulments, the tens of thousands that are provided each year."
Did Ketchup Boy say he doesn't remember whether he got an annulment?
I didn't et an annulment before, so now I have to get an annulment.
Apparently he should read the AP.
I thought only Bush doesn't get his news from papers and TV.
Kennedy is right, mum is Always he word.
Nowadays you see legal annulments mostly in old (19C, early 20C) novels -- I think there's one in Jane Austen. Typical pattern is two teenagers run away to get married against their parents' wishes; if the parents don't catch them in time to prevent the ceremony but before consummation, the parents get it annulled.
That's a stupid, baseless smear.
The only reason it matters to anybody in a political sense is that Kerry was making a big deal of being a Catholic (presumably, courting the ethnic Catholic Dem vote). If he's not validly married in the Church, then he certainly cannot be getting photo ops with bishops and trying to go after Catholic voters on those grounds.
Yes, the language of liberals! That's what I assume, too.
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