A couple who has been married for a number of years, say over ten, will less likely be able to get an annulment - with all things otherwise being equal. In any case, the Church would much prefer that people work it out.
But remarriage is, in practice, the ultimate point to annulments, isn't it? Without it, a Catholic cannot get remarried and still be a communicating member of the Catholic Church. How often, really, are annulments sought in cases where neither member of the couple is wanting to remarry?
I don't know such statistics. An annulment is not necessary if one merely separates, so in one way, you are correct. People don't normally seek annulments unless they realize that the first "marriage" will cause an impediment to a potential second one. But this is not always true. However, people have a way of doing things for different reasons than what the Church intends.
Almost by definition, a couple that is getting divorced does not involve people who are deeply involved in the life of Christ through the Church.
It would seem that way, but it is not necessarily true.
He always forgave sins, restored them to fellowship, and told them to "go and sin no more." This no more means that Christ was approving of those sins than does the fact that the Orthodox Church allows up to two remarriages mean that we approve of divorce, and it is basically what the Orthodox Church does in the process of granting an ecclesiastical divorce.
I did not intend on attacking the Orthodox's ecclesiastical process for such matters by talking about Catholic annulments. I am certainly not an expert on Canon Law. All I know is what the Church teaches about such matters. The Church teaches that abortion is a grave evil. Yet, people do it. Does that mean we do away with the law that abortion is gravely evil? No. We call people to live the life of Christ. Being a disciple of Christ entails dying to self. Yes, many people will have a difficult time with this teaching. But if they leave the Eucharist over it, how strong was their faith to begin with? I'd prefer not to make such broad generalizations, even though I am... I do not envy the priest who has to counsel a couple who are on the verge of a civil divorce, a young couple.
Regards
"...the Church would much prefer that people work it out."
Of course. But at the point that annulments are being sought, the Church really doesn't have much of a chance to encourage that, does she? By this point, the person seeking the annulment has decided that he/she wants to remarry, and probably has the person picked out.
And of course abortion is a sin. But does the fact that the a Catholic woman can step into a confessional, confess that sin, receive absolution, do penance, and eventally return to receiving communion mean that the Catholic Church has approved of abortion? Of course not.
A better comparison would be if the Catholic woman got an abortion, went to the priest, and made her case her understanding of it was imperfect at the time because of the influence of the surrounding world. And then the Catholic priest, instead of giving a penance and giving absolution, makes the decision (perhaps with the help of a Tribunal) that actually no abortion had *really* ever taken place.
We don't need to kick this dead horse much more. I didn't feel that you were attacking Orthodox practice, and I'm not attacking the idealism of Catholic practice.
Orthodoxy and Catholicism both hold up the same ideal (and as I said before, if anything, the Orthodox ideal is more stringent, since it discourages any remarriage whatsoever.) The way we convey the ideal and deal with the realities of life is simply quite different. We do it by holding our clergy to the highest standard as an example to the laity, by educating the laity on what the Church expects, and by dealing with the fallout of a fallen world and of people who have fallen away from the Church in the ways that I have described.
Catholicism requires the strict ideal of everyone, and deals with the same fallout by finding ways to explain that these marriages were never really marriages in the first place.
Traditional Catholics view the Orthodox approach as being one that gives approval or license to the sin of divorce.
Orthodox tend to see the Catholic approach as verging on a dishonesty made necessary by a legalistic approach to the matter.
But then, that is much of our disagreement in a nutshell, isn't it? The lack of centralization, codification, consistency, etc. in Orthodoxy drives Catholics crazy. Catholic juridical approaches to the faith drive us crazy. Fortunately, we are both happy where we are.
Regards,
A