How many Catholics become Protestants because of divorce?

[gurneyhalleck1]

I like your Ronnie James Dio signature. Nice!

To respond to your query, yes, I can. From an evangelical Protestant Anglican point of view, the Anglo-Catholics are a failure in that they rejected the Reformation, which sought to bring back the true spirit of an Augustinian spirituality based on grace, faith, scripture, and imputation, and for the sake of unity and a misplaced desire to have a central leadership as well as frustration with women’s ordination, they jumped ship and ran to Rome. Most of them have been highly-critical of Rome for years and had no love for the papacy but out of sheer frustration with floating bishops and the failures of forward in faith within the CofE, they are settling for a return to the very Church that the Anglican movement sought to reform in the 16th Century.

This is devil’s advocate speech I’m giving here of course. But you get my point. From an evangelical anglican view, Protestantism is the true faith and someone who gives up on simple faith in Christ and imputation of grace and the norms of the Reformation has settled for a works-driven system of merit and earning heaven rather than the lessons of Romans and Galatians. This is a point of view some people have.

It’s no more helpful than the title of this thread or the constant anti-Protestant stuff IMHO.

That would be intersesting do you think you can find some examples of this? Protestants failing and becoming Catholics.

 

[ChrisCrop]

The catholic church issues PLENTY of annulments. The church doesn’t encourage people to work on their marriage or entertain the thought of being a single person, active in the church. The annulment process is HIGHLY encouraged. And I personally have never heard of anybody be denied an anulment, as long as they paid.

 

[fbl9]

I like your Ronnie James Dio signature. Nice!

To respond to your query, yes, I can. From an evangelical Protestant Anglican point of view, the Anglo-Catholics are a failure in that they rejected the Reformation, which sought to bring back the true spirit of an Augustinian spirituality based on grace, faith, scripture, and imputation, and for the sake of unity and a misplaced desire to have a central leadership as well as frustration with women’s ordination, they jumped ship and ran to Rome. Most of them have been highly-critical of Rome for years and had no love for the papacy but out of sheer frustration with floating bishops and the failures of forward in faith within the CofE, they are settling for a return to the very Church that the Anglican movement sought to reform in the 16th Century.

This is devil’s advocate speech I’m giving here of course. But you get my point. From an evangelical anglican view, Protestantism is the true faith and someone who gives up on simple faith in Christ and imputation of grace and the norms of the Reformation has settled for a works-driven system of merit and earning heaven rather than the lessons of Romans and Galatians. This is a point of view some people have.

It’s no more helpful than the title of this thread or the constant anti-Protestant stuff IMHO.

I find it intersting how many people recognize the source of my signature.
Is your devil’s advocate speech your honest view of those that bailed out of the Anglican church?I do not say protestantism for the if Luther’s teaching was so correct why is there anything else?.

 

[anp1215]

From what I have seen as being an ex United Methodist, you never hear that divorce and remarriage is a problem. It is not taught as being wrong. If our civil laws allow it, it is ok.

As a former evangelical, this is my experience too. Mostly silence on the issue of divorce/remarriage. It is taught that divorce is a “sin”, but you can still ask forgiveness and remarry. And if you get divorced again, ask forgiveness and remarry again, etc etc.

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

Try a quote from “Holy Diver” next time

I’m merely giving you what you asked: an example from a Protestant viewpoint of a failure to be a good Protestant ending up in one becoming Catholic. That’s what you asked?

From a Protestant point of view, the Reformers fought to get a works-driven obsession with out of context papalist ideals out of the minds of Christians and instead replace it with a confidence in the grace of Christ Jesus. Catholics, in their eyes, had little faith in their own salvation and had to rely on the machinery of an institution and continually be worried they can lose salvation if they don’t make enough merit and cooperate enough with the Church’s sacramental system while devoting themselves to a vast pantheon of saints, pilgrimages, corrupt indulgences, complex Marian speculation and devotion, and going through a pile of red tape with magisterial mandates and burdens placed on the soul. Overscrupulosity and a reliance upon one’s own works, one’s own free will, and a fear of God as a terrifying judge, not a loving saviour. That was really the crux of Luther’s writings, all of which I’ve read umpteen times.

So from that point of view, a Protestant raised the ‘right’ way to not put confidence in one’s works or doubt one’s salvation, to grow up rightly trusting in God’s mercy and free imputation of grace a la Romans/Galatians without an obsession about works and merit and Church institutional intrusion into the liberty of the Christian soul, to turn away from all that liberation and go back to the chains of the Catholic Church’s demands, indulgences, communion of saints devotion for every occasion, Marian dogmas, papal decrees, going through hoops and ladders and earning merit, that’s a gigantic, enormous, mammoth step in the wrong direction and one is returning to the very corrupt, despoiled institution that the Reformers fought tooth and nail to leave and overcome.

That’s the view from the other side you asked about.

So my point is that this thread and all these threads like: “Protestants: why don’t you care about Mary?” or “Protestants: why are you all ok with divorce?” or “Protestants: happy with 30,000 different confusing schisms?” are all not very helpful to reunion, ecumenism, or healthy dialogue.

I just don’t want to see Catholics turn so militant that they end up being as bad as the wingnut crazy Protestant groups like Jack Chick and CARM that are so anti-Catholic. Catholics, my whole life growing up, were so charitable, sensible, kind, and usually unwilling to engage in smearing and polemics. Sometimes when I turn on Catholic Answers on the radio, they mention the shortcomings and foolery of Protestantism in one hour so much that I think, “I listened to the Protestant radio station for a week straight and not ONCE did I hear a Catholic smear? Are the Catholics now worse than the Protestants with triumphalism and Pharisaic superiority tones? Yeesh!”

There are some really charitable, open-armed Catholics on this forum and some wonderful, kind, open-minded Protestants. Were that all were so level-headed!

I find it intersting how many people recognize the source of my signature.
Is your devil’s advocate speech your honest view of those that bailed out of the Anglican church?I do not say protestantism for the if Luther’s teaching was so correct why is there anything else?.

 

[bjryman]

Hi folks, just starting to get into these forums. Very interesting especially since I am a main lay contributor to RCIA, CRHP, Catholics Coming Home, and have a wife who remained Baptist for 35 years of our marriage, until three years ago when she went through RCIA.

Now she is on fire within our faith and participating in many ministries.

I give this bit of background because we both believe in the “informed conscience” learning experience preached by our post Vatican leadership. It is a method used, I believe, to keep the faithful upbeat, positive, while continuing to work through in their own minds and hearts, some of the teachings with which we are personally at odds.

Divorce and remarriage is on of those tough ones. I have a daughter who, two years ago married a fallen away Catholic who was divorced after getting married at 17 due to having a child. The annulment took about one and half years and was granted because there was no question that the marriage happened due to only the baby, not any personal commitment to each other…and the ceremony was held by the Justice of Peace only. To her credit, my daughter postponed her wedding an extra 8 months awaiting the delayed annulment decision. My son-in-law completed RCIA prior to the marriage as well

Here is my big issue with the Church’s teaching on divorce…I have consoled women in our parish who, after 10 years of marriage bliss, were then subject to abuse, spousal affairs and finally abandonment. The spouse was happy to leave and start a new life with another women. The annulment process failed because the church could not find fault with the initial marriage. So now, at age 40, two women must live celibate lives to meet the Church’s teachings. Sorry, this is absolutely WRONG, and in an “informed conscience” approach, I believe needs addressing.

My wife has problems with several teachings of the Church that absolutely stretch almost any interpretation of Tradition or Scripture. The only way we can really deal with them is to ask the question “does this teaching negatively impact my own salvation or my pathway to holiness”. If it doesn’t (like Immaculate Conception or Assumption) we just live with it and go with the flow. In the case of marriage abandonment that places on spouse at such a finite impasse we say…"no way Jesus would allow this "

 

[fbl9]

Hi folks, just starting to get into these forums. Very interesting especially since I am a main lay contributor to RCIA, CRHP, Catholics Coming Home, and have a wife who remained Baptist for 35 years of our marriage, until three years ago when she went through RCIA.

Now she is on fire within our faith and participating in many ministries.

I give this bit of background because we both believe in the “informed conscience” learning experience preached by our post Vatican leadership. It is a method used, I believe, to keep the faithful upbeat, positive, while continuing to work through in their own minds and hearts, some of the teachings with which we are personally at odds.

Divorce and remarriage is on of those tough ones. I have a daughter who, two years ago married a fallen away Catholic who was divorced after getting married at 17 due to having a child. The annulment took about one and half years and was granted because there was no question that the marriage happened due to only the baby, not any personal commitment to each other…and the ceremony was held by the Justice of Peace only. To her credit, my daughter postponed her wedding an extra 8 months awaiting the delayed annulment decision. My son-in-law completed RCIA prior to the marriage as well

Here is my big issue with the Church’s teaching on divorce…I have consoled women in our parish who, after 10 years of marriage bliss, were then subject to abuse, spousal affairs and finally abandonment. The spouse was happy to leave and start a new life with another women. The annulment process failed because the church could not find fault with the initial marriage. So now, at age 40, two women must live celibate lives to meet the Church’s teachings. Sorry, this is absolutely WRONG, and in an “informed conscience” approach, I believe needs addressing.

My wife has problems with several teachings of the Church that absolutely stretch almost any interpretation of Tradition or Scripture. The only way we can really deal with them is to ask the question “does this teaching negatively impact my own salvation or my pathway to holiness”. If it doesn’t (like Immaculate Conception or Assumption) we just live with it and go with the flow. In the case of marriage abandonment that places on spouse at such a finite impasse we say…"no way Jesus would allow this "

l

 

[Roy5]

Okay. My experience.

** 1. Protestant churches around here are full of ex-Catholics, and perhaps the largest number are because of divorce.** As others have said, mainstream Protestant churches, as well as many evangelical ones, too, do not sanction divorce, but they often regard it as like other failings. It is not an unpardonable sin, certainly. It reflects human weakness just as other sins do. Jesus didn’t say it was an unforgiveable sin, either, though he did condemn it. Killing is condemned in scripture, too, and so is theft and much more, but men still go to war and thieves are punished and then are permitted to start afresh.

** 2. The annulment process is cumbersome to many, can have substantial costs, may involve a considerable wait, often is refused, and suggests that the first marriage was somehow invalid. ** And many see it simply as a ‘Catholic divorce’ and regard it as an attempt of the church to control the lives of the faithful. Take one man I know. He and his wife had four children. They lived happily for many years until she finally began to have serious mental problems. The husband stood by her until the situation became impossible. Now the husband did not for a moment think that there were any circumstances when they married that would suggest that the marriage was invalid from the outset. He also thought it was somehow unsavory to now claim that the marriage was invalid after four children and so many years of happiness. Once the couple were divorced, an action (by the way) approved by his children, now all adults, he found a new love. His priest insisted that he go through the annulment process, he refused, they were married by a Presbyterian pastor and are now very active in that Presbyterian Church. Three of their four children also have left the Catholic Church, partly because the this whole situation. Meanwhile, their mother had to be institutionalized. No one was really to blame, they felt, so why should their father have to go through all the red tape and what they also viewed as ‘a lie’ since that first marriage, they felt, was totally legitinate?

** 3. There is an underlying feeling among some that Catholicism still is essentially too upset by what it regards as illegitimate sex.** Let’s face it. Maybe we don’t like it but the old taboos have largely been replaced by a new attitude. Sex is a gift from God, a strong natural need and desire among most people, a bonding between men and women, one of the supreme joys of normal living, and adults should be free to govern their own sexual lives. They should be responsible, of course. They should avoid promiscuous ‘fornication’, to use the Biblical term, for religious as well as sound psychological and physical reasons. But there is some resentment that a celibate clergy sets the rules for married couples. Even more at issue here than divorce is birth control. Probably as many Catholics leave the church because they have decided to practice artificial birth control. What right does the church have to dictate their lives in the bedroom? They have two or three children, are happy with that, don’t feel prepared to take care of and educate more, and they know that the church-approved method is somewhat like Russian-roulette. When perhaps a priest scolds them and insists that they stop, they decide to say bye-bye. Or, they don’t confess it to begin with.

** 4. Divorce often is preferrable to infidelity.** Statistics show that a high percentage of husbands and wives cheat on their spouses. That apparently is forgiveable, though it is adultery. How come when a divorced spouse remarries it is not forgiveable short of an annulment? Both are adultery. A former Catholic asked me once. “When I got a divorce, I could no longer receive communion. Yet, they name Catholic schools after President Kennedy who likely was the most promiscuous president ever. How come that double standard?” I would be curious as to how posters here on CAF would respond to him.
Thank God that the Lord is just and merciful. May God bless everybody, and especially those facing tough moral decisions.

 

[fbl9]

Okay. My experience.

** 4. Divorce often is preferrable to infidelity.** Statistics show that a high percentage of husbands and wives cheat on their spouses. That apparently is forgiveable, though it is adultery. How come when a divorced spouse remarries it is not forgiveable short of an annulment? Both are adultery. A former Catholic asked me once. “When I got a divorce, I could no longer receive communion. Yet, they name Catholic schools after President Kennedy who likely was the most promiscuous president ever. How come that double standard?” I would be curious as to how posters here on CAF would respond to him.

 Thank God that the Lord is just and merciful. May God bless everybody, and especially those facing tough moral decisions.

Hi Roy5:
A civil divorce does not dissolve the marital bond made between the couple and God.
Nor does an annulment.
An annulment examines if that bond truly existed with full consent, full intention, and full knowledge. If the examination determines if the three f’s existed the maritla bond stands.
St.Matthew 19:3-9
St.Mark 10: 2-12
St.Luke16:18
Jesus does not make the exmption for those that have been put away for gounds of infidelity.
St.Paul’s 1st Epistle to the Corinthians 7:10-13 StPaul is clear that those who are divorced are not to remarry.
Since you lack belief in the Eucharist you could not appreciate the Church’s reason for the examination process of an annulment.The Church would be a very poor mother if she deliberately let her children take Holy Communion in a state of mortal sin.

 

[mark_a]

I’ve been trying to stay off the forums,

We’ve missed you.

The bottom line is this: either the Catholic Church needs to bite the bullet and call on all divorced people to remain celibate and all remarried people to live as brother and sister, or the Catholic Church needs to change its position, probably in the direction of the Orthodox teaching on “economia.” I am honestly not calling for one or the other of these things. I could respect either. But the present position, as it is normally explained and applied, is simply impossible to respect, because it is incoherent and dishonest.

To me, a better bottom line is to be sure the teachings are understood by the couple before the marriage takes place.

 

[mark_a]

Okay. My experience.

** 1. Protestant churches around here are full of ex-Catholics, and perhaps the largest number are because of divorce.** As others have said, mainstream Protestant churches, as well as many evangelical ones, too, do not sanction divorce, but they often regard it as like other failings. It is not an unpardonable sin, certainly. It reflects human weakness just as other sins do. Jesus didn’t say it was an unforgiveable sin, either, though he did condemn it. Killing is condemned in scripture, too, and so is theft and much more, but men still go to war and thieves are punished and then are permitted to start afresh.

** 2. The annulment process is cumbersome to many, can have substantial costs, may involve a considerable wait, often is refused, and suggests that the first marriage was somehow invalid. ** And many see it simply as a ‘Catholic divorce’ and regard it as an attempt of the church to control the lives of the faithful. Take one man I know. He and his wife had four children. They lived happily for many years until she finally began to have serious mental problems. The husband stood by her until the situation became impossible. Now the husband did not for a moment think that there were any circumstances when they married that would suggest that the marriage was invalid from the outset. He also thought it was somehow unsavory to now claim that the marriage was invalid after four children and so many years of happiness. Once the couple were divorced, an action (by the way) approved by his children, now all adults, he found a new love. His priest insisted that he go through the annulment process, he refused, they were married by a Presbyterian pastor and are now very active in that Presbyterian Church. Three of their four children also have left the Catholic Church, partly because the this whole situation. Meanwhile, their mother had to be institutionalized. No one was really to blame, they felt, so why should their father have to go through all the red tape and what they also viewed as ‘a lie’ since that first marriage, they felt, was totally legitinate?

** 3. There is an underlying feeling among some that Catholicism still is essentially too upset by what it regards as illegitimate sex.** Let’s face it. Maybe we don’t like it but the old taboos have largely been replaced by a new attitude. Sex is a gift from God, a strong natural need and desire among most people, a bonding between men and women, one of the supreme joys of normal living, and adults should be free to govern their own sexual lives. They should be responsible, of course. They should avoid promiscuous ‘fornication’, to use the Biblical term, for religious as well as sound psychological and physical reasons. But there is some resentment that a celibate clergy sets the rules for married couples. Even more at issue here than divorce is birth control. Probably as many Catholics leave the church because they have decided to practice artificial birth control. What right does the church have to dictate their lives in the bedroom? They have two or three children, are happy with that, don’t feel prepared to take care of and educate more, and they know that the church-approved method is somewhat like Russian-roulette. When perhaps a priest scolds them and insists that they stop, they decide to say bye-bye. Or, they don’t confess it to begin with.

** 4. Divorce often is preferrable to infidelity.** Statistics show that a high percentage of husbands and wives cheat on their spouses. That apparently is forgiveable, though it is adultery. How come when a divorced spouse remarries it is not forgiveable short of an annulment? Both are adultery. A former Catholic asked me once. "When I got a divorce, I could no longer receive communion.

Except for not including how our culture’s contraceptive mentality is the root of most or all the above, I think you pretty much nailed the difference between the Catholic teaching and Protestant teaching on marriage.

Yet, they name Catholic schools after President Kennedy who likely was the most promiscuous president ever. How come that double standard?" I would be curious as to how posters here on CAF would respond to him.

It is a sad but true fact.

And almost refreshing because most ex-Catholics use Mary and the sacrament of reconciliation as their Catholic whipping boy.

 

[TheRealJuliane]

**I wonder how many Catholics become ex-Catholics because of divorce? ** We have a Protestant church located about 30 seconds from the parish which advertises a ministry for divorced people on their sign out front – it is almost as if they are fishing for divorced Catholics. I wonder how many Catholics are simply unwilling to go through the annulment process and just wind up going to an accepting Protestant congregation.

I can think of one…Henry the 8th!!!



I just had to say it.

 

[Pug]

Here is my big issue with the Church’s teaching on divorce…I have consoled women in our parish who, after 10 years of marriage bliss, were then subject to abuse, spousal affairs and finally abandonment. The spouse was happy to leave and start a new life with another women. The annulment process failed because the church could not find fault with the initial marriage. So now, at age 40, two women must live celibate lives to meet the Church’s teachings. Sorry, this is absolutely WRONG, and in an “informed conscience” approach, I believe needs addressing.

I wouldn’t describe it as the “annulment process failed”, myself, but I do see the terrible burden of pain and abandonment that these women experience. Sin causes a lot of pain in this world, even when we aren’t the ones who did it. It is true that the Church teaching is that if the marriage was valid, then the woman will be required to live in a single manner until the man dies, because she is still married. It is the same for the man, but in your example, the man doesn’t care what the Church says.

 

[PattiDay]

Okay. My experience.

** 1. Protestant churches around here are full of ex-Catholics, and perhaps the largest number are because of divorce.** As others have said, mainstream Protestant churches, as well as many evangelical ones, too, do not sanction divorce, but they often regard it as like other failings. It is not an unpardonable sin, certainly. It reflects human weakness just as other sins do. Jesus didn’t say it was an unforgiveable sin, either, though he did condemn it. Killing is condemned in scripture, too, and so is theft and much more, but men still go to war and thieves are punished and then are permitted to start afresh.

The Catholic church doesn’t teach that divorce is an unpardonable sin. There is no sin which cannot be forgiven if one is truly repentent.

** 2. The annulment process is cumbersome to many, can have substantial costs, may involve a considerable wait, often is refused, and suggests that the first marriage was somehow invalid. ** And many see it simply as a ‘Catholic divorce’ and regard it as an attempt of the church to control the lives of the faithful. Take one man I know. He and his wife had four children. They lived happily for many years until she finally began to have serious mental problems. The husband stood by her until the situation became impossible. Now the husband did not for a moment think that there were any circumstances when they married that would suggest that the marriage was invalid from the outset. He also thought it was somehow unsavory to now claim that the marriage was invalid after four children and so many years of happiness. Once the couple were divorced, an action (by the way) approved by his children, now all adults, he found a new love. His priest insisted that he go through the annulment process, he refused, they were married by a Presbyterian pastor and are now very active in that Presbyterian Church. Three of their four children also have left the Catholic Church, partly because the this whole situation. Meanwhile, their mother had to be institutionalized. No one was really to blame, they felt, so why should their father have to go through all the red tape and what they also viewed as ‘a lie’ since that first marriage, they felt, was totally legitinate?

Annulment is not a one-size-fits-all process. It is not meant for a couple who entered into a valid marrage where illness, whether physical or mental, made it undesirable to one or both.

** 3. There is an underlying feeling among some that Catholicism still is essentially too upset by what it regards as illegitimate sex.** Let’s face it. Maybe we don’t like it but the old taboos have largely been replaced by a new attitude. Sex is a gift from God, a strong natural need and desire among most people, a bonding between men and women, one of the supreme joys of normal living, and adults should be free to govern their own sexual lives. They should be responsible, of course. They should avoid promiscuous ‘fornication’, to use the Biblical term, for religious as well as sound psychological and physical reasons. But there is some resentment that a celibate clergy sets the rules for married couples. Even more at issue here than divorce is birth control. Probably as many Catholics leave the church because they have decided to practice artificial birth control. What right does the church have to dictate their lives in the bedroom? They have two or three children, are happy with that, don’t feel prepared to take care of and educate more, and they know that the church-approved method is somewhat like Russian-roulette. When perhaps a priest scolds them and insists that they stop, they decide to say bye-bye. Or, they don’t confess it to begin with.

The ‘new attitude’ is not a reason to change a faith’s teaching. Attitudes come and go. Adults are free to govern their own lives, but they must be willing to live with the consequeces if it goes against their faith teaching.

** 4. Divorce often is preferrable to infidelity.** Statistics show that a high percentage of husbands and wives cheat on their spouses. That apparently is forgiveable, though it is adultery. How come when a divorced spouse remarries it is not forgiveable short of an annulment? Both are adultery. A former Catholic asked me once. “When I got a divorce, I could no longer receive communion. Yet, they name Catholic schools after President Kennedy who likely was the most promiscuous president ever. How come that double standard?” I would be curious as to how posters here on CAF would respond to him.

Adultery is, as you say, a sin in both cases. If the sin is committed again and again with no intention of discontinuing the sin, then it is living in a state of sin. A divorced Catholic can receive Communion, but not when living in a state of sin. No one is exempt from the consequences of sin, no matter that person’s status.

Thank God that the Lord is just and merciful. May God bless everybody, and especially those facing tough moral decisions.

Amen

 

[mark_a]

Here is my big issue with the Church’s teaching on divorce…

I did’t know the Church had teachings on divorce.

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

They do: it’s forbidden religiously to be given one by the Church, annullments only but allowed civilly as long as there is no remarriage. The Church teaches annulments may be had which point to the fact that there was never a valid marriage to begin with.

I did’t know the Church had teachings on divorce.

 

[mangy_dog]

I wonder how many Catholics become ex-Catholics because of divorce? We have a Protestant church located about 30 seconds from the parish which advertises a ministry for divorced people on their sign out front – it is almost as if they are fishing for divorced Catholics. I wonder how many Catholics are simply unwilling to go through the annulment process and just wind up going to an accepting Protestant congregation.

Divorced catholics want their cake and want to eat it too.

While some may genuinely be cause for annulment, others simply refuse to stay in the catholic church because on the one hand they don’t like the idea or feeling that they can’t have communion (especially if deep down they know that they were the cause of the divorce). And on the other hand they don’t “feel” that there is other richness in the catholic faith which allows for spiritual growth.

This is not attractive when leaving a physical relationship. Especially if there wasn’t a real spiritual appreciation of the sacrament.

The ones that end up going to another “faith” - usually end up in a quasi-agnostic/atheist existence at worse…some just settle in another “faith” and suppress the roots of their catholicism and disguise it in " I used to be a catholic" mentality.

how sad.

 

[mark_a]

They do: it’s forbidden religiously to be given one by the Church, annullments only but allowed civilly as long as there is no remarriage. The Church teaches annulments may be had which point to the fact that there was never a valid marriage to begin with.

The Church teaching is about marriage. Annulments, divorce, etc. are exceptions that the Church, God bless her, tries to deal with the human failure with the teaching on marriage.

By the way, the Church doesn’t “grant” annulments. She can declare only that a nullity exists. The system is as imperfect as the people who must try to deal with it.

 

[Hesychios]

"How many Catholics become Protestants because of divorce?"

I don’t know. My guess is not very many.

Most probably become unchurched, sometimes very skeptical about all things religious.

It’s the children and grandchildren, growing up unchurched or just barely so, who may become Protestants.

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

You’re playing a semantics game, mark. The Church is granting a person the fact that the annulment is allowed and they may remarry, no? If a body or individual has the right to say yes or no to something, then they are granting them something, pure and simple. If you don’t like that word, so be it.

grant   /grænt, grɑnt/ Show Spelled
[grant, grahnt] Show IPA

–verb (used with object)

1. to bestow or confer, esp. by a formal act
2. to give or accord: to grant permission.
3. to agree or accede to: to grant a request.
4. to admit or concede
5. to transfer or convey, esp. by deed or writing: to grant property.

The Church is the body making the decision that the man or woman had a valid or invalid marriage to begin with. The Church is deciding if a couple was never properly or validly bound in matrimony. So they are granting permission to the couple to go forth and marry. One receives a grant from the Church in that they are determining something for you. If the Church is not granting them permission to remarry and granting them an annulment, then I suppose they can just declare their own annulments and decide the matter without the Church? If they don’t need something granted, they already have it.

Again you’re playing a semantics game with “divorce” and “marriage.” Of course the term divorce is a negative expression within a teaching about marriage. That’s a given. But the Church does teach about divorce, does it not? If they do not, then we can go ahead and divorce and remarry, right? They teach there is no divorce and only for civil purposes may a couple divorce but they may not remarry. So there IS a teaching about divorce within the context of a marital narrative.

It’s like saying there’s no teaching about pornography in the Catholic Church just because you don’t like pornography? Of course pornography is evil and it’s a negative thing. The Church does have a teaching about it within the context of other moral imperatives that are stated in the positive.

So if there is no teaching about divorce, why is there section 1650 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church?

1650 Today there are numerous Catholics in many countries who have recourse to civil divorce and contract new civil unions. In fidelity to the words of Jesus Christ - '‘Whoever divorces his wife and marries another, commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery’'158 **The Church maintains that a new union cannot be recognized as valid, if the first marriage was. If the divorced are remarried civilly, they find themselves in a situation that objectively contravenes God’s law. **Consequently, they cannot receive Eucharistic communion as long as this situation persists. For the same reason, they cannot exercise certain ecclesial responsibilities. Reconciliation through the sacrament of Penance can be granted only to those who have repented for having violated the sign of the covenant and of fidelity to Christ, and who are committed to living in complete continence.

Looks like they have a teaching on divorce to me: it’s wrong!

The Church teaching is about marriage. Annulments, divorce, etc. are exceptions that the Church, God bless her, tries to deal with the human failure with the teaching on marriage.

By the way, the Church doesn’t “grant” annulments. She can declare only that a nullity exists. The system is as imperfect as the people who must try to deal with it.