An annulment is a ruling by the Catholic Church that a marriage was never valid TO BEGIN WITH; it has to be rooted in a situation that existed at the time of the wedding. In the former NJ governor’s case, if he was married in the Catholic Church his wife could obtain an annulment by the fact that he was a homosexual AT THE TIME OF THE WEDDING. One of the reasons the Catholic Church stopped pushing young people to “do the right thing” if the woman was pregnant out of wedlock because that was always grounds for an annulment; either party could later claim they married only because she was pregnant at the time of the wedding.
Another example would be someone who was mentally ill at the time of the wedding, or someone who was already married to someone else at the time of the wedding.
People refer to annulment as “Catholic divorce”, but the timing issue is what really distinguishes it from a divorce. A divorce is a legal ruling that a valid marriage is over; an annulment is a decree that a marriage never took place. I believe Ted Kennedy’s wife publicly fought the annulment he sought; she knew there were no valid grounds for it.
There is no Biblical basis for annulment.
God did not recognize it and Jesus never taught it.
It’s strictly a man-made concept to avoid the stigma of a divorce.
You get married and have sex, you’re married, period, and the breaking of the marriage is called divorce.