And I have NEVER found someone who left the Catholic church for that reason.
Catholics don't need to leave the church for getting out of a marriage they don't want to be in.
All they have to do is convince a priest that it wasn't a valid marriage to begin with and voila, church sanctioned divorce on tap.
“And I have NEVER found someone who left the Catholic church for that reason.”
I have. Many times. It’s probably the number one reason why some Catholics become Episcopalians.
First of all, a Catholic who is divorced, but does not remarry civilly or cohabitate, that is, who maintains chastity avoiding to their state in life, is still a Catholic. Not everyone who is divorced wants to be, and it can be a painful thing for all concerned. The Church offers counseling and Retrouvaille retreats for couples who are having problems. If efforts to remain together do not work, and the couple obtains a civil divorce, they must remain chaste to remain in the Church, in full communion.
Do all 1.2 billion Catholics abide by this? No. People do remarry and they do cohabitate. Do all clergy deny them the reception of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament because they have made the choice to remarry thus renouncing the Sacrament? No. Not everyone does accordingly. It's human nature. Most of the people I know who have left the Church have done so because of remarriage.
Second, the Church does not grant divorces. It also does not grant annulments lightly. That fact had a huge effect in both secular and religious history.
The Catholic Church has seven Sacraments, of which Holy Matrimony is one. Annulment means that the reception of the Sacrament was not valid, or was subject to impediment, to begin with. While civil divorce deals with all aspects of the marriage, an annulment concerns the spiritual, and most intimate, as well as the mundane, aspects of the marriage bond. It is not an easy process, and involves a great deal of witness, questioning, testimony, research on all parts. Valid impediments would include lack of disclosure to a spouse of mental illness or addiction when one was already aware of same; coercion of one or both spouses to marry against their will; undisclosed prior valid marriage; incapability of spouse to remain faithful due to sexual addiction or abberation. Simply not wanting to be married any longer is not considered as valid.
As a result, the marriage is not considered dissolved; it is acknowledged to not have been valid in the first place. Children of the marriage are considered legitimate when an annulment is granted.