Your points are good ones, yet this story doesn’t make me happy. An annulment means the sacrament was invalid, but it doesn’t mean there wasn’t some type of marriage in the first place. I think it’s unfortunate that the details of this man’s life before the priesthood had to be made public. I don’t doubt the goodness or sincerity of this new priest, but I think it sets a bad example for a priest to be someone who was married, had two children — who, I’ll concede are now adults — and got a civil divorce and an annulment before becoming a priest. People in pews whose marriages are in crisis could reasonably look at this priest and think, “There were ground for him to get an annulment and start over. Why not for me, too?”
Is an annulement like a hafqa’at kiddushin?
(Essentially a forced get because there was something not valid in the marriage.)
Or do you know what that is?
He is no longer married, at least in the eyes of the church. Without knowing the specifics of the annulment it is not ours to judge. This does not seem like a “Kennedy Annulment” to me.
I think its guys like this who make the best priests. They know life and they know God.
If he is truly repentant of any sins he committed prior to taking his vows...he is fine with me.
I don’t know if this will help but: An annulment doesn’t say the sacrament was “invalid” (or in any way defective) it says it never occured in the first place. The marriage never occured in the eyes of God.
This is how it’s different than a “simple” divorce. A divorce is man saying (or trying to say but failing miserably), “This marriage no longer exists. It’s terminated.”
No one has the power to do that. “What God has joined no man can separate”. This is always true.
So the good Father here is in no way lessening the sacramental vow and bond. It never existed in the first place for him, or his wife.