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To: TigerClaws
This situation would be analogous to cases where churches post Civil Right refused interracial marriage. The Supreme Court upheld any church refusing to perform a legal marriage would lose tax-exempt status.

Possibly. Reference please.

Churches don't even have to marry people of their own church if they don't meet qualifications. For instance, the Catholics won't perform a marriage for a divorced Catholic unless he goes thru the (often more or less sham) process of getting an annulment.

9 posted on 09/05/2012 4:55:57 AM PDT by Sherman Logan (Perception wins all the battles. Reality wins all the wars.)
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To: Sherman Logan
"(often more or less sham) process of getting an annulment."

Actually, annulment a forensic canonical proocess involving a formal investigation and a judge. It's not at all a sham. The very procedural gravity of it is why some people resent it (and some highly value it.) It provides a perspective of objectivity that people in difficult marriage situations often need.

It' such "grave matter" that if one party or the other doesn't think the result is 100% legitimate, they can appeal it to Rome. Rome doesn't mess with local diocesan stuff unless it's serious.

And nobody can be denied an investigation of nullity because of lack of money. The process takes time and investigators and judges incur expenses; but if a person can't afford it, it's to be done at no cost.

15 posted on 09/05/2012 5:10:13 AM PDT by Mrs. Don-o
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To: Sherman Logan
(often more or less sham) process of getting an annulment

It's rarely a sham these days.

That's for two reasons:

(1) The rules are being more strictly followed (my wife's cousin went through an extensive process despite the fact that her first marriage met exactly none of the criteria for a Catholic marriage) and

(2) Probably 50% of Catholic marriages or more involve spouses who have defective intent.

It is very difficult to argue that Ted Kennedy or Joan Kennedy, who was raised in Riverdale in the 1940s and went to Sacred Heart, did not understand and agree to the conditions of a valid Catholic marriage.

Thanks to "the spirit of the Council" very few young Catholics are versed in Casti Connubi.

22 posted on 09/05/2012 5:29:07 AM PDT by wideawake
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