Posted on 08/04/2009 5:43:44 AM PDT by markomalley
No wonder Mel Gibson is giving the thumbs-up. Full time has been called on his 28-year marriage to Robyn Moore. The Pope didn't give the order, though. That edict came from Mel's 90-year-old father Hutton Gibson, and it paves the way for his son to marry his pregnant Russian girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva by Christmas.
Having had his request turned down by Catholic bishops, Mel, 53, pleaded his case in front of a tribunal of members from the Church of the Holy Family, his breakaway Catholic church in Malibu.
Hutton, who once studied for the priesthood only to leave before he was ordained, presided over the hearing. He granted Mel's annulment request after his son presented evidence that his union to Robyn, 53, was never a true marriage — even though they wed in a Catholic ceremony in Australia in June 1980.
"Especially important was Mel's description of how he felt pressured into the marriage in the first place because Robyn was pregnant," a family insider says.
"Those feelings indicated to Hutton that it couldn't have been a true marriage, and so he felt it must be invalid.
"After the discussion ended, Hutton pounded his fist on the table and said, ‘It is true that this union did not have what it takes to be a true marriage.'"
The family are at pains to keep the annulment, which took place a month after Robyn filed for divorce in April, a secret — but maybe not too secret.
"Mel hopes some of the bishops he has befriended recently can be persuaded to give him a proper Catholic annulment," the insider says.
Either way, Mel is forging ahead with plans for a Christmas wedding to Oksana, 39, despite her cold feet over his recent behaviour, which includes gambling escapades in Las Vegas.
As stated, true - Except we have many marriages that break up -for reasons that neither you nor I like - but they still break up and do not conform to the above criteria - and still some get an annulment. Not good and people think money talks.
Only about 5 to 10 percent of Catholic divorces get annulments. What do we do write them off? Many do not apply for annulment because they know they had a valid marriage and to seek an annulment would be a lie and a violation of their consciences. What pastoral procedure would you suggest? Face it -Good marriage sometimes die.
Yes .. and he has the gaul to hope he can still obtain an annulment from the Catholic Church ... based on what?
You wrote:
“I heard some grumbling about Kerry’s annulment during the 2004 campaign. According to you it sounds like there could have been good reasons — and I may have been impugning the man.Do you know what the facts were behind his annulment?”
I know nothing about his annulment. As far as I know the actually proceedings were NEVER made public because they never are.
“I’m curious as to why he was granted one. I guess I could just go to Google but I’m lazy. LOL.”
I know he applied for an annulment one year AFTER marrying Heinz.
Also, there’s little or no evidence he ever got an annulment: http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=00ByfR
You wrote:
“It should.”
No, it shouldn’t. That’s not rational.
“And your attempt to compare children to Acorn activists is quite silly.”
My analogy was sound. And I didn’t compare children to Acorn activists. Read it again and you’ll see I compared the number of children idea to the number of signatures. Being able to understand things as simple as analogies helps when discussing issues. A person cannot expect to understand much without that faculty.
You wrote:
“Is this informal church “tribunal” authoritative under ecclesiastical law?”
Not even remotely. It would be like if five or six of your buddies got together and said, “Oh, So-and-So’s marriage is not a true marriage.” It’s utter nonsense. Now, to be fair, they may be absolutely right in their conclusion (I have no idea about the circumstances surrounding Mel’s marriage), but it is ridiculous for these lay people to think they can be wield the authority of an official Church body when they are in practice not even part of the Church.
Very interesting — thanks for looking this up for me. It seems like the campaign was kinda hush hush on this.
So then Kerry’s second wedding to Heinz would not have been a Catholic wedding. Interesting. But not really that interesting, since he is yesterday’s news as it were.
Thanks for looking this up :)
No evidence exists that Kerry was granted an annulment in Boston or DC.
***Mel was addicted to the *Drink* that allows Satan to do some terrible things to you...***
You mean....Zima?
Let me use another example to illustrate my point. If a priest does not use the specific words "Take this all of you and eat it; this is my body which will be given up for you" - if he does not use THOSE words, then transubstantiation does not occur. If a priest spent his entire career saying mass and using a different phrase - no matter how the rest of the liturgy and ceremony and sacramental trappings may indicate that transubstantiation had occurred - I've got news for you - in not one instance did transubstantiation actually take place.
In the same way - regardless of children, longevity, public appearances, quality of life or relationship - if the basic requirements of making a free choice to marry with the intent of having children is not met - then an actual marriage never took place.
I would hazard to say you're falling into the same trap that all of the same sex marriage advocates are setting - if it looks like a marriage, and sounds like a marriage, and feels like a marriage - WELL THEN, IT MUST BE A MARRIAGE.
The end of such a marriage requires a divorce not an annulment. Be honest.
You can't have a marriage annuled without breaking the civil union, as well. As I mentioned above, if the marriage isn't valid when the vows are exchanged, it doesn't suddenly become valid later on.
I would submit that a lot of Catholics who get divorced do not consult with a priest ahead of time. If there is simply no other reasonable situation but to pursue a civil divorce, a priest can at least give guidance on whether or not there is a possibility the marriage was not valid from the get-go. Granted, there are annulments that seem cringe-worthy, without knowing all the critical details, but there are likely many marriages that are worthy of annulment that do not receive the designation because people do not want the deep scrutiny required of friends and family, or they simply don't know what qualifies for annulment.
Marriages don't die until a spouse dies. They may become painful, lonely, burdensome, and darn near unbearable, but then, "pick up your cross and follow me..."
That's the whole point of indisollubility. If a marriage never existed in the first place, there's your annulment.
lol
There is no question of the correctness of your statement above. But to pretend that after 25 to 30 years of a "happy" marriage, if the guy suddenly runs off with his secretary, we discover he never had the intention of having children (despite six kids) - that is quite a stretch - who is kidding whom. The need is for some honesty.
You wrote:
“If one bothers to read the scriptures, it is quite rational. “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife and the two shall become one flesh.””
You’re completely off. Logically one cannot use a verse from scripture about marriage - that doesn’t even mention the number of children resulting from a union as somehow retroactively making a union a marriage - as proof of what you claim. It simply doesn’t say ANYTHING about what you’re talking about and fails in every way to bolster your argument.
“Obviously, if one continues over and over to join his flesh with the woman to whom he is legally married, then he is, by his own behavior, validating the marriage.”
No. 1) The civil legality of a marriage is essentially immaterial to the actual nature of the marriage. This was not so in ancient Israel where the civil law and the religious law were essentially one in the same. 2) The frequency of sexual intercourse between a man and woman shows nothing about the validity of a union.
“It’s not as if he did an “oopsie” one time. So yes, having 7 children with the woman to whom you are legally married makes quite a bit of difference.”
No, actually it makes no difference at all. You’re only proving my point by failing to come up with an argument that holds water.
“Maybe to the worldly mind. But certainly not sound scripturally.”
According to the Old Testament scriptures, polygamy is moral. And here is another example of scriptural marriage law that no Christian follows today:
Deuteronomy 22:28-29, “If a man finds a girl who is a virgin, who is not engaged, and seizes her and lies with her and they are discovered, then the man who lay with her shall give to the girl’s father fifty shekels of silver, and she shall become his wife because he has violated her; he cannot divorce her all his days.”
Seize a virgin and you get her as your wife after paying 50 shekels.
When people invoke the scriptures in regard to marriage, they should know what they’re talking about.
Well that wouldn’t be a valid reason for annulment, and I doubt that would be the factor in granting an annulment. It would certainly be a factor if a couple were childless due to one spouse’s refusal to procreate after pledging to do so (if possible) during the wedding. If someone has six kids, it can only be assumed they intended to have children when they married.
Psychological immaturity is, from what I understand, a big factor in annulments. It’s a little too vague for my tastes (like “health of the mother” with regard to abortion), and the current pope has definitely come out and charged tribunals with the task of honing that definition to avoid the appearance of frivolous annulments.
Duress is also vague, but a “shotgun” wedding would certainly be eligible for annulment - whether it’s severe family pressure or coercion or seduction under false pretense.
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