Which harms marriage more, state gay marriages or liberal Church annulments?

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Both are bad news. If we can only see into our own sinfull nature we can see that trying to blame the problem into liberal tribunals is not so. We are the manipulator, shame on all parties
God bless all
 
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PilgrimJWT:
Neither. The biggest problem is selfishness on the part of the individuals involved. Heterosexual marriage has had problems of its own for millenia–but nobody has come up with a better substitute. The graces of Matrimony may not always be effective, but they are way ahead of whatever is in second place.
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NEITHER? Same sex marriage means the end of marriage. When your children are taught that it doesn’t matter who they marry, and are punished for thinking they have to marry someone of the opposite sex will you then realize what same sex marriage means for our society? I can’t believe that we are even considering that easy annulments are worse than legalized same sex marriage. Why don’t we start a list of all the things that are harmful to marriage. That is different than redefining what marriage is. I am divorced. Not by choice. My wife no longer wanted to be married to me. I guess it would have been better for marriage if I just said no. The reasons people divorce are many. I don’t think we should accuse all those who are divorced of harming marriage. I get the impression that too many here would rather see annulment be hard to obtain than marriage remain male/female.
 
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guse:
NEITHER? Same sex marriage means the end of marriage. When your children are taught that it doesn’t matter who they marry, and are punished for thinking they have to marry someone of the opposite sex will you then realize what same sex marriage means for our society? I can’t believe that we are even considering that easy annulments are worse than legalized same sex marriage. Why don’t we start a list of all the things that are harmful to marriage. That is different than redefining what marriage is. I am divorced. Not by choice. My wife no longer wanted to be married to me. I guess it would have been better for marriage if I just said no. The reasons people divorce are many. I don’t think we should accuse all those who are divorced of harming marriage. I get the impression that too many here would rather see annulment be hard to obtain than marriage remain male/female.
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I list of all things that are harmful to marriage would be interesting. But what is the list of things that are beneficial to marriage?

What is meant by saying something is beneficial to marriage?
 
guse: Children are already taught in our society that who we marry, and how many times we marry, are of no concern, and that it is RIGHT to practice contraception even within marriage. Those are things that affect heterosexual relationships specifically, whereas homosexual unions only affect them in a round-about way.

The fact is that the state has NO place in the Sacraments, and never should have been allowed to encroach on them in our society in the first place, IMO. The U.S. has never been Catholic, and has often been down-right hostile to the Church. We survived 2000 years without the U.S., and we will be around long after it has disintegrated. American Catholics put far too much emphasis on the actions of a secular, sinful government, and far too little on the actions of the Church. I am a Catholic first, a social human second, and an American a distant third. So long as my Church stands, what does it matter to me what a temporary, secular human social arrangement does with itself? God created the Church, not the U.S., and we are citizens of the Church first and foremost; our loyalty should always lie there. Why people raise a fit about there kids being exposed to gay marriage when they are already being taught how to practice free and “safe sex” in public schools is frankly beyond me. People make it sound like the attack on the Sacrament of marriage has somehow entered into a new and vicious stage now, when in fact the most insidious attacks were going on for decades without nearly as much outrage.

Again, I think it has a lot to do with people feeling more attached to the secular world than to the world of faith. Remember, legal marriage is not and never has been the Sacrament of Marriage, and it can neither add to, nor take away, from its reality.
 
Steven Merten:
Both the priest and the annulment tribunal told her that her husband’s unnulment was none of her business. The tribunal granted the unnulment.
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???

You know in my annulment both myself and my ex had to fill out a ton of paperwork… it was both our “business” I disbeleive the story as told.

-D
 
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Ken:
I’d say that secular society led with divorce, and the Church followed with annulments because its members were getting divorces anyway.
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I didn’t realize that secular society was in a position to teach truth to the Church. I thought it was the job of the Church to uphold the standards of Truth. If the Church is indeed following, then perhaps there is a serious problem somewhere?
 
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csr:
I didn’t realize that secular society was in a position to teach truth to the Church. I thought it was the job of the Church to uphold the standards of Truth. If the Church is indeed following, then perhaps there is a serious problem somewhere?
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Perhaps there is a problem. But observation indicates the Church is the follower.
 
Once again. Same sex marriage means that mothers are irrelevant. Men and women are interchangeable. Women exist for what? Just to give birth? Can we be honest? Millions of happy, faithful marriages involve the use of contraception. Many people are divorced but realize the importance of having the mother or father in their child’s life. Marriage is not only a sacrament. It is also an institution that soceity recognizes as necessary. Should we not concern ourselves with this world? Same sex marriage is a rejection of the idea that the best situation to raise a child is with a male and female influence. Unfortantely, if the posts here are any indication of faithful Catholics thoughts, same sex marriage is inevitable. Well, at least we can count on the evangelical Protestants to fight the good fight. We Catholics don’t care who raises children; just as long as the man/man/woman marriage doesn’t end in divorce.
 
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Ghosty:
guse: Children are already taught in our society that who we marry, and how many times we marry, are of no concern, and that it is RIGHT to practice contraception even within marriage. Those are things that affect heterosexual relationships specifically, whereas homosexual unions only affect them in a round-about way.

The fact is that the state has NO place in the Sacraments, and never should have been allowed to encroach on them in our society in the first place, IMO. The U.S. has never been Catholic, and has often been down-right hostile to the Church. We survived 2000 years without the U.S., and we will be around long after it has disintegrated. American Catholics put far too much emphasis on the actions of a secular, sinful government, and far too little on the actions of the Church. I am a Catholic first, a social human second, and an American a distant third. So long as my Church stands, what does it matter to me what a temporary, secular human social arrangement does with itself? God created the Church, not the U.S., and we are citizens of the Church first and foremost; our loyalty should always lie there. Why people raise a fit about there kids being exposed to gay marriage when they are already being taught how to practice free and “safe sex” in public schools is frankly beyond me. People make it sound like the attack on the Sacrament of marriage has somehow entered into a new and vicious stage now, when in fact the most insidious attacks were going on for decades without nearly as much outrage.

Again, I think it has a lot to do with people feeling more attached to the secular world than to the world of faith. Remember, legal marriage is not and never has been the Sacrament of Marriage, and it can neither add to, nor take away, from its reality.
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I wish we could ignore the actions of a secular, sinful government, but we can’t. We must do what we can to protect all of society. I agree that the most insidious attacks have been going on for decades, and now it’s an open attack with the movement for SSM. It **is **a new and vicious stage when certain groups are trying to redefine what marriage actually is. I wish I could have worked up some more outrage earlier, but the sexual revolution started when I was a small child.

Legal marriage has never been the sacrament of marriage, but marriage is also a human institution and it always has been. It existed before the Church and still exists in societies that have never recognized the Church. The reason marriage is recognized and preferred by the state is that it performs an irreplaceable function: the procreation and rearing of the next generation of citizens. As Christians we have an obligation to work for just laws in our human institutions and governments.
 
‘Homosexual marriage’ is an objective evil that can not be reconciled with the will of God. “Liberal Church Annulments” is an insult used by judgemental people whose actions can not be reconciled with the will of God.

The church is given the authority to investigate and determine if a declaration of nullity is warranted on a case by case basis. Their judgement is to be respected by the faithful. To forever taint those, men and women, who in good faith, have recieved a declaration of nullity with the notion that it is probablly not be valid is about as unchristian as it gets.

God Bless
 
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BobCatholic:
I think there should be a third option: selfishness.

When people think only of themselves, they will kill their marriages. It is the #1 threat to marriages. Nothing else even comes close. “homosexual unions” That’s a result of selfishness. “liberal annulments?” same thing. Both result from liberalism which basically says “selfishness is good.”

To paraphrase a RAID commercial: Selfishness kills marriages DEAD.
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How is a homosexual union selfish?
 
Steven Merten:
I vote that liberal annulments are far more distructive to Christ’s Church than state gay marriages.

What do you think?
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I have heard of homosexual unions that have lasted in a 50 year relationship. Then you have Miss Spears and her 50 hour long marriage. I would say the problem is people not taking marriage seriously, not homosexual unions. I think divorces should be extremly hard to get, so that people think long and hard before entering marriage, and not just thinking “Well if it doesn’t work out we can just get divorced”.

My wife and I have had our share of problems, and we have come within a hair’s length of getting a divorce, but we forgave each other and worked through it, and our marraige is stronger than ever. People today are lazy and don’t want to have to work at a marraiage. NEWS FLASH: IF you dont work at a marriage it is Guarunteed(sp?) to fail!!
 
How is a homosexual union selfish?
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Because it thinks of the self and the self’s desires and not what God wants. Because it cannot be procrative or unitive in the way God intends.
 
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deogratias:
Because it thinks of the self and the self’s desires and not what God wants. Because it cannot be procrative or unitive in the way God intends.
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In other words it’s selfish because you believe it’s selfish.
 
Can’t vote on this one because one, State gay marriages is clearly wrong.

The other option can only be taken when one places themself above the authority of the Church.

The Church is not liberal, nor conservative, it is the Church. It is the Truth.

Now maybe the people in the Church may fall short of the Glory of God, but the Church does not.

To say that annulments that are granted are bad is to become a protestant, to raise yourself above the authority of the Church and to judge it.
 
I don’t know of any infallible protection on Declarations of Nullity, so there’s nothing Protestant about saying that there are abuses going on. How can the Church have infallible protection of declarations of nullity when it doesn’t even have infallible protection on declarations of Marriage?
 
My next thought on the gay marriage is proceeded by my story.

My husband and I were married at a non-denominational church. I was Catholic he was anti-Catholic. He had been married and divorced(start to finish-9 mos) while serving in the Army. We were married 17 years when he converted to Catholic. We have 4 children who are Catholic. As soon as he converted, the Church explained that we now needed an anullment. It took three years before the anullment came through and our marriage was blessed.

We were told that an anullment is needed if two BAPTIZED christians marry reguardless of faith. Even though we were never able to prove his ex was baptized, the Church errored on the side of caution and assumed she had been because most people are. He was married by a county commissioner near the base he was stationed on, not a church. But he was a baptized christian and that was all that mattered.

So if you are gay and marry, if you wanted to divorce your “other”, I would assume that you would get a speedy anullment as your marriage was not sacramental. You wouldn’t have to struggle for 3 years to get an anullment.

At least in our diocese, anullments are not speedy or easy.

We even had to go to counseling after the anullment to make sure we wouldn’t screw up this marriage(20 years long)

Anullments aren’t easy and I vote gay marriages are the problem.

Kelly
 
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YinYangMom:
Are annulments handled like divorces in that the woman would have received official notification in the mail stating her marriage was annulled?

Would that official mailing have included options for her to proceed from there…Like with insurance claim denials…“you have the right to appeal within XXX days by doing the following: …”
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My official mailing stated that the decision would be appealed automatically to another tribunal (called the Tribunal of the Second Instance), but that it could be appealed to the Roman Rota instead – and, yes, it does say something like, “you have XXX days” to do so. Both parties were informed they have the right to examine the decision of the judge.

The official notification also orders the cost of the trial to be paid by the petitioner (annulments aren’t free); however, an appeal to Rome must be paid by the respondent.

(Notice I’ve used the words “judge” and “trial.” Those are the words used in my notication letter. It’s a very formal process.)

I can understand how devoted Catholics who have struggled at times in their marriages could look with disdain on all the annulments being granted and think the annulment process is a cop-out by the Church. I can only say for myself that I’m grateful I was able to become Catholic late in my adulthood, despite all the mistakes I’ve made. It could be true that the annulment is bogus and that Jesus doesn’t really forgive me – but that’s only for Jesus to judge.

Tricia Frances
 
Gay marriages undermine the basic precepts of marriage and family.

Liberal annulments are the manifestation of many issues including but not limited to:

No true commitment to marriage
Liberal attitudes on dating
Poor Catecheses
Nothing heard from the pulpit
Contraception
Feminism
Children seen as inconveniences
Material pursuit
etc…
 
Neither, but the true lack of understanding of what marriage is and adequate, prayer preparation for marriage instead of prep for the wedding day.
 
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