Annul this! Or: don't crap on my plate and call it chocolate
Once upon a time, I blogged about my doubts regarding the annulment process, and expressed my intention to just get married at City Hall and get it over with. A record number of readers wrote in, begging me to reconsider, in the nicest, most moving possible terms.
So I did. And once in a while, one of those nice people will ask, very tactfully, via email, how Arnie's annulment is going.
Well, it isn't. I'm not a procrastinator, and neither is Arnie. Once he gets a bee in his bonnet there's no stopping him. But on this subject, I regret to say we were bee-less. A few phone calls made, a few documents sent for. We're really no further ahead on getting his first marriage annulled than we were when I was first deluged with letters.
Not listening to my gut is always a mistake. As I wrote at the time, the annulment process strikes me as unbiblical, bureaucratic bullshit. All the nice emails in the world couldn't change my gut, even if they temporarily changed my mind.
Now we get an update on the case that turned so many of us off:
The Vatican reversed the annulment of former representative Joseph Kennedy II's first marriage, a union that had lasted 12 years and produced two sons. Rauch had sharply criticized the Catholic church for annulling her marriage, alleging in a 1997 book that the Kennedy family's influence in the church had made it possible.
Rauch and Kennedy, the eldest son of the late Senator Robert F. Kennedy, were granted a civil divorce in 1991. She said she found out about the annulment only after Kennedy married his former congressional aide, Beth Kelly, in a civil ceremony two years later.
Rauch said she was told of the Vatican's decision to reverse the annulment by officials from the Boston Archdiocese in May, although the decision was actually reached in 2005.
You have GOT to be kidding me. I am not taking part in such a bullshit procedure, and frankly, you have to be a stupid little sheep to go along with such a paternalistic, sleight of hand, Eurotrash parlour game:
"...we do know that the final decision from Rome came nine years after the original annulment. 'Justice delayed is justice denied,' the old adage teaches, and in this case the long delay is an injustice. If Sheila Rauch was indeed married to Joe Kennedy, didn't she have the right to a reasonably prompt determination of that fact? If the marriage did not take place, didn't Joe Kennedy have the right to know that he was free to enter into a new marriage in the Church?
"Next, notice that the Roman Rota reached its final decision (that is, barring the possibility of another appeal) in 2005. CWN heard about it in 2006. Sheila Rauch reports that she was not officially informed until May 2007. Is that lengthy delay not a further injustice? According to the Time magazine, the formal notification to Rauch, the petitioner, was delayed 'while the official written notice was being prepared.' Really? You might think that, after pondering the case for a decade, officials of the Vatican tribunal would have their thoughts sufficiently organized so that they could write up a decision in less than 18 months."
You'd think, and you'd be wrong. Those of us who "think" are, as far as I'm concerned, not under the authority of those who don't, those Euroweinie time-serving three-hour-lunch jackoffs in the Curia.
See, this is how Leopolds and Loebs are made. I refuse to follow dumb rules and dumb procedures made up on the fly by dumb people. I'm smarter than they are. I work harder and more efficiently. Therefore I refuse to acknowledge their authority or participate in their reindeer games. This here Rudolph's got a cooler nose, anyway. Hope they all like the view of my butt...
My vocation as an outsider, one I've always known was mine and have by turns rejected and embraced, is confirmed yet again. There is no room for me in the Catholic Establishment (and a petty, toffee nosed little club it is too) as recent events have made clear. But the secular world with its brainless Church-bashing is just as bad.
Oh well. A relatively easy cross to bear, all in all. The Real Presence is just that to me -- so Real that the consecration makes my heart skip a beat every time, after all these years. It pains me greatly to think that I can never receive communion again, but there is always Adoration, and I prefer that anyway...
I am forced to "marry" -- like some half-drunk cross dresser on a whim -- within the walls and halls of our city's monument to bien pensant socialism and brainsucking paperwork because my Church is an ass.
When our Amazon Bridal Registry is set up, I'll let you all know. But don't bother to write this time. My mind (and gut) is made up.
UPDATE:
The supportive emails are coming from women (mostly, not all) as well as a priest who wrote: "I don't blame you." All the vitriolic name calling hate mail is coming from men. Surprise!
I should have been clearer in my original post. Arnie and I started the process by phoning the Office and gathering documentation as per their instructions. And that's where it ended. No one was or is "holding us up".
So why didn't we just go through with it? I've been assured by a few people that, given Arnie's circumstances (one divorce from one civil marriage) the annulment procedure wouldn't take more than a month or two. In fact, it wasn't strictly speaking an "annulment" at all.
But please understand that we just couldn't take the procedure seriously. It's like saying, "Getting your pocket picked won't take very long," as if that's a selling point.
Neither of us are much good at b.s., our own or anyone else's. Pretending that for all intents and purposes, Arnie's first marriage wasn't "real." Getting marriage instruction from a gay celibate man who lives alone, and trying to keep a straight face. Vowing that I'll "welcome children" when I won't.
The whole thing was going to be a sham. Over the past months, I've heard stories about other people's annulments that would turn anyone off, always with the woman getting the shaft. I'm not participating in that pharisiacal carny game.