[lawdave]

I don't understand your objection. The Church looks to see if the person entering into the marriage at the time of the marriage had the requisite intent to recieve the sacrement. In Fat Teddy's case, it was determined that when he made his vows he did not intend to keep them. There is no dependence on future actions. If he had the correct intent and then later decided to be unfaithful, it would not permit anullment. Similarly, if someone was married with no intent at the time to ever have children, then there would not be a sacremental marriage. A fundemental element of the marriage was missing. On the other hand. if the person later learned that they could not have children but had the intent when they were married, the marriage is still sacremental.

The fact that there is no "fingers crossed" aspect is why you have to go through a long process to get an anullment. It is not a "no fault" process like divorce these days.

[RFEngineer]

“I don’t understand your objection.”

I’m just generally anti-unmarriage as things go as it’s not helpful to society for so many marriages to break down with the end result being unmarriage.

It’s not that there aren’t valid exceptions....just would be better if there didn’t have to be.

[boatbums]

I have to agree with RFEngineer here and "fat" Teddy is a good example. You said he was granted the annulment by the Catholic Church because it was determined he never had the intent to keep his vows of fidelity. First of all, that is going by his word, secondly, his wife Joan certainly had the intent and third, they were married for many years and had multiple children - all factors that SHOULD have been taken into account before Teddy was lifted off the hook and allowed to REMARRY in the same Catholic Church to another Catholic. How can this NOT be seen by those outside the Catholic Church as blatant hypocrisy?

The law of the U.S., today, allows "no-fault" divorce and so does the Catholic Church, it appears. As long as a suitable excuse is provided, an annulment is a given which permits remarriage IN the church and that definitely is NOT following the stated dogmas of the Church. The criticism is deserved.