[patriciaruth]

They had all those children and it wasn't a valid marriage?

Can your average Catholic get away with that or is this an example of political pull?

[BlackElk]

You are thinking of civil (government) annulments. Catholic Church annulments are an entirely different matter. The children of marriages annulled by the Catholic Church are regarded by the Church (the only authority that counts for actual Catholics) as legitimate.

There have been scandals over the Church annulments of the rich and sleazy but those scandals have nothing whatsoever to do with legitimacy of offspring. The bigger scandal is that 2/3 of all of the Roman Catholic Church's marriage annulments in the entire world occur in the United States each year. The US Catholics constitute a mere 6% of the world's Catholics but obtain 66 2/3% of the annulments. That is the real scandal, available to rich and poor alike. The US Catholic Church has richly deserved the disraceful title of AmChurch.

May Benedict XVI punish AmChurch accordingly and crack down on all of the AmChurch abuses.

[Torie]

I'm not Catholic, but I have the impression that annulments are handed out like hotcakes.