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The church made their own rules. A friend of mine got her marriage annulled....All you gotta do is PAY!!

Don't comment on something (church annulment) you obviously don't understand. A church annulment is not the same as a civil annulment. Same goes for the comments from others on this thread that he had his "kids annulled".

That is not what church annulment does. The children are legitimate. A church annulment (and don't count Mel's breakaway church as representative of the Catholic church) says that one, or the other,or both, parties to the marriage had an impediment (mental or physical) that made a true marriage impossible.

An annulment is granted only after a Church Tribunal hears and studies all the evidence, and it's a lengthy process. The party seeking the annulment has to gather the evidence, including written testimony from parents and others who knew the couple before and after the marriage took place.

The money you talk about is NOT a bribe as many imply. The money pays for copies of all the paperwork and the associated court costs and can be very little. My daughter's annulment cost around $250 in Seattle about 16 years ago. The Tribunal appointed an attorney to represent her. In her case, her husband was mentally ill and had not disclosed that fact before the marriage. He also had undergone a vasectomy before he met her and had not disclosed that fact either.

Another little known fact. The Church does not deliberate on an annulment until the couple already has been granted a civil divorce. And another complication is that the Church will not consider an annulment unless BOTH parties file their paperwork, or at least sign off on the process. In my daughter's case signing off was merely that her ex returned teh papers with "Don't bother me about this" scrawled across them and his signature at the bottom. That proved that he had received the papers and that was enough to start the process.

And she sought the annulment on the advice of several different priests. It was a bad situation.

You wrote:

“The church made their own rules. A friend of mine got her marriage annulled....All you gotta do is PAY!!”

False. The court costs are low. If you can’t pay them, you don’t have to. I know someone who was so financially strapped by her divorce that she paid NOTHING for the annulment court costs.

Also, some people have taken cases all the way to Rome...and have been turned down flat. Most people throughout history were turned down as a matter of fact.

Perhaps it is time for an honest discussion about the annulment process.

Why can we not admit that once healthy marriages can for whatever reason die?
Why can't we let go of the ghost of Henry VIII and allow a divorce.
Why can we not admit that in many cases, not all, the current Church annulment process is dishonest. True or false, many if not most people think it is a “pay to play” scheme. As well intentioned as were the original efforts, it has not worked in all too many instances.