“It included a trip to Rome by the ‘good’ cardinal to arrange a speedy decision from the Vatican. (Being laicized does not allow a former priest to marry; it simply removes him from the active priesthood and the obligations – the Daily Office, for example – and the privileges: his faculties to say Mass and perform the other sacraments and, separately, his ability to preach, but it does not allow him to marry. The release of the ‘vow of celibacy’ is a separate process that Pope John Paul II was very reluctant, initially not willing, to grant.)
