Word: rauch
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...sympathize with Sheila Rauch Kennedy in the breakdown of her marriage to Joe Kennedy II [NATION, May 12], but I regret her views on the Roman Catholic Church's process of annulment. Your story said Rauch, who is protesting the annulment of her 12-year marriage, decries "the annulment procedure's dishonesty in ruling that a once happy marriage never existed in the eyes of God." Almost half the marriages in the U.S. end in divorce, including those of Catholics. In recent decades, more annulments have been granted because of a deeper understanding of the spiritual and emotional maturity required...
Well, many Catholics, some in high places, share that particular misconception. Sheila Rauch Kennedy (an Episcopalian) decries what she claims is the annulment procedure's dishonesty in ruling that a once happy marriage never existed in the eyes of God. But for two decades, the main criticism of the American church's annulment system, at least among conservatives, has been of its generosity. U.S. Catholics in 1994 received 54,463 annulments, 75% of all those granted worldwide and more than 90% of all they requested. Some people wink and call it "Catholic divorce." Others, like former Pilot editor Philip Lawler...
...Catholic belief, no human can dissolve a marriage, a sacrament undertaken by bride and groom before God. Church tribunals do not presume to void the contract. They can only determine (to the dismay of people in Rauch Kennedy's position) that owing to human incapacity or error, a valid contract was never entered into in the first place. For centuries the standards for this were clear and high: mental illness of either spouse, for instance, or impotence at the time of marriage. In 1968 only 338 decrees of nullity were granted in the U.S. But in the early 1960s, John...
...grave scandal." Robert Vasoli, author of the forthcoming book Tearing Asunder: Annulment American Style, says that on this issue, "the church in the U.S. is practically in schism with Rome." An overstatement, perhaps, but in 1994 Pope John Paul II warned the Roman Rota, the Vatican court to which Rauch Kennedy has appealed, against a "mistaken idea of compassion and mercy" that might cloud true justice...
...commented on the matter, but prosecutors are investigating the statutory-rape allegations. Meanwhile, the new flap won't help Michael's brother Joseph, who has his eye on the Massachusetts governorship. Joseph's reputation is already taking a beating, thanks to a tell-all book by ex-wife Sheila Rauch Kennedy...