I just think it’s funny that there’s a country singer with the last name “Urban”.
Could he be an Urban Cowboy? Yikes, he might be related to John Travolta, and that gets us right back into Scientology!
I had my first marriage annulled in the Catholic church.
As tomndebb says, its a negation of the sacrament, not a negation of the marriage. It cost a few hundred dollars and I had to get several witnesses who knew us both before and during the marrage to attest to the fact that my ex-husband was not in a state to enter a sacramental marriage at the time of marriage (mainly his being unable to be faithful - he had issues with that before, during, and I hear through the grapevine, after. We also had some issues around raising kids Catholic).
I was still married. I was still married in a Catholic Church. It was never a sacrament.
(This may be a fine line for people not Catholic to grasp).
And I’m now a Unitarian and married Brainic4 - an atheist - in front of a judge in a civil service, so it really doesn’t make any difference anymore if it were annulled or not. At the time, it made me feel somewhat “cleaner” to be rid of the spiritual baggage.
Dangerosa–thank you for your clarity. It all makes much more sense when viewed from a “spiritual baggage” POV. Something like this would be very important to someone who wants to live by the credos of their church–it makes sense to me now. I don’t share that, but can see how someone would need something like that. Some more ignorance fought-thanks.
nevermind …
Alternately, we can start one now!
Right, and in the Catholic Church the sacrament of marriage is actually bestowed by the bride and groom, not by the priest. He is there as a witness and to ensure that the ceremony meets the guidelines, but the bride and groom marry each other in the eyes of God.
Which is why if either of them was not what they seemed, what s/he professed to confer was invalid.
It wasn’t even necessarily the credos of the church - though that was nice. For me, it was the rather conservative Catholic church reviewing the case and saying “yep, nothing you could’ve done about that, he wasn’t ready for marriage in the sense we use the word, shouldn’t have happened.”
I don’t now agree with the Catholic Church’s definition of marriage, but the fidelity piece is important to ME. And wasn’t to him. Which had him failing points 1 and 3 from smiling bandit’s post.
If the OP decides to go this route, I request that he kill Mr. Urban merely mostly dead. Then ship the corpse to me and I’ll, um, nurse him back to health.