I've been ruminating over this one for a little while now, wondering from what angle I should approach my thoughts and words. How best to propose my position and articulate my opinion, really how to paint the picture in my head on to this screen. What seems to keep cropping up for me is a very strong image of a toilet. I mean a huge stink ass toilet because this is a crock of shit....
Yes my friends and loyal readers, whomever you may be, the church, in its infinite wisdom has granted my ex an annulment, in effect saying that our marriage of 19 years never happened. Poof...it's gone. Invalid. Hmmmmm, do you think I may have something to say about this?
First, let me dispense with this disclaimer. I don't care that my ex wanted an annulment, if she is happy to wipe away the idea that we were married, had three kids and did all kinds of things over that time in an effort to be whole again from a Catholic point of view and to be able to marry in the church again...? Whatever. If a little peace is found for her than so be it. I couldn't disagree more with the process and the reasoning but that's not my decision to make. My day started the same way after being informed of my non existent marriage and nothing changes for me in the way I view the whole issue.
Back to the toilet now. I spent some time thinking about an appeal of the decision, for as I have said previously, there didn't seem to be grounds for granting this request. So I needed to read the decision to see on what notion this was granted and if it was worth any additional effort on my part. I spent an hour or so with the nice church lady reading the decision and asking questions of her...I was pretty sure I was reading it correctly and I just wanted to see if she agreed. The long and short of it is that my ex essentially said that the annulment should be granted because of things related to me...that I didn't know what I was doing, that I wasn't fully invested in the idea of marriage...and so on. Obviously we differ on this point since, without equivocation, we knew exactly what we were doing and we were fully committed to each other at the time of the marriage. Which is the key point, a marriage can be declared null if there was a 'fatal flaw' at the time of the sacrament. There was not...the flaws coming later on. The grand wizard though, in all his glory, declared that the marriage was annulled because she had proven that she was not capable of understanding what she was doing when we were married. Anything to do with me was thrown out of the mix. Kind of poetic and kind of sad at the same time if you ask me.
I wasn't allowed to get a copy of the document, for reasons unknown, otherwise I would be quoting verbatim from it to try and explain the utmost ridiculousness of the argument for annulment and it's consequences. So, if A happened which was followed by B, three B's to be specific than the B's are a product of A. So as not to lose you or me, A is the marriage and B are the kids. The B's, in the eyes of the Church, are legitimate because they were brought forth within the context of A. If A ceases to exist and is declared to have never even happened than it stands to reason that the B's are illegitimate, in the eyes of the church. This FAQ response was taken from a web site called beginningcatholic.com
"At the time of the child’s birth, they were born of a legal marriage in civil law and a putative marriage in canon law (which means that everyone thought in good faith that the marriage was valid). So at the moment of the child's birth, he or she was civilly and canonically legitimate. An annulment DOES NOT retroactively affect a child's legitimacy."
I'll leave the canon law expertise to others but I can't help but think that someone is speaking from both sides of their mouths here. A kind of circular argument that really doesn't work leaving more questions than answers. Kind of like, Jesus loves all, he is a a god of love. Except the church has problems with gays and a whole host of others. It's a hard thing to comprehend when, what should be, a moral compass for the world still stands in the way of people's human rights....the church has close to zero credibility as far as I see it. And a boatload of hypocrisy to boot. Thankfully my kids are fully aware and not bothered by this development...their legitimacy coming from within.
"At the time of the child’s birth, they were born of a legal marriage in civil law and a putative marriage in canon law (which means that everyone thought in good faith that the marriage was valid). So at the moment of the child's birth, he or she was civilly and canonically legitimate. An annulment DOES NOT retroactively affect a child's legitimacy."
I'll leave the canon law expertise to others but I can't help but think that someone is speaking from both sides of their mouths here. A kind of circular argument that really doesn't work leaving more questions than answers. Kind of like, Jesus loves all, he is a a god of love. Except the church has problems with gays and a whole host of others. It's a hard thing to comprehend when, what should be, a moral compass for the world still stands in the way of people's human rights....the church has close to zero credibility as far as I see it. And a boatload of hypocrisy to boot. Thankfully my kids are fully aware and not bothered by this development...their legitimacy coming from within.
Look, I know certain people see me as a godless infidel, that I may have an axe to grind and I'm not filled with the holy spirit; other fellow non deity judgemental fucks aside, that alone shouldn't stop god from loving me if he is truly a god of love. Right? Or is it love for a special sub sect? It seems arbitrary to me...like somebodies interpretation of somebody else's whims and pontifications. Much like the annulment process, a final determination was made without much thought to the after effects on the flock....leading the church to make up cannon law to support and administer their position. And these positions and decision are made on a perception of faith...what they think God wanted them to do. The whole "what would Jesus do?" sideshow. What could possibly go wrong?
The funny hat brigade has had two millennia to sort out their issues and yet here we stand...still dealing with the repercussions of those issues, of those decisions. Be it as insignificant as an annulment such as mine or the horror of the crusades, the church's hands are not clean in this world, perhaps they should seek forgiveness first.
The duplicity, hypocrisy and down right abhorrent nature of this whole process, from beginning to end has only achieved one thing for me...a further strengthening of my distrust and avoidance of religion. Which to be honest, was quite strong before this....what with all the skeletons, just that much more now. As the kids say...I'm done.
Let the church decree what it needs to decree in the name of whatever made up claptrap it is using to justify itself...my reputation, such as it is, is left intact with this decision and the church and everyone can go to the bed they have made for themselves. I'll be sleeping fine.
Ciao
D
The funny hat brigade has had two millennia to sort out their issues and yet here we stand...still dealing with the repercussions of those issues, of those decisions. Be it as insignificant as an annulment such as mine or the horror of the crusades, the church's hands are not clean in this world, perhaps they should seek forgiveness first.
The duplicity, hypocrisy and down right abhorrent nature of this whole process, from beginning to end has only achieved one thing for me...a further strengthening of my distrust and avoidance of religion. Which to be honest, was quite strong before this....what with all the skeletons, just that much more now. As the kids say...I'm done.
Let the church decree what it needs to decree in the name of whatever made up claptrap it is using to justify itself...my reputation, such as it is, is left intact with this decision and the church and everyone can go to the bed they have made for themselves. I'll be sleeping fine.
Ciao
D
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