really? I give you the Kennedy family.
I give you evidence (google "cost of a Catholic annulment" and see what you find: $400 - $1,00 average, sliding scale down to zero in cases of financial distress, cheap compared to civil divorce,and it's a money-losing proposition for most dioceses);
And you give:
Two words.
"The Kennedies."
The. Kennedies.
And not even any facts about "The" "Kennedies". How much DID Congressman Joe P. Kennedy II pay for his annulment? And then Joan Rauch Kennedy, his ex, had it overturned on appeal to the Vatican. How much did SHE pay? More than he did?
Any what were the grounds?
Give me the financial facts, the case-law facts, and do the same for Ted and Joan Bennett Kennedy, and for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Mary Richardson Kennedy.
Otherwise, you're just arguing from tabloids, and generalizing from worst-case scenarios, when you should be arguing from evidence.
And by the way,at least in the case of Ted, the marriage was arguably null because Ted's vows were knowingly fraudulent: he did not intend, from the git-go, for the marriage to be either unbreakable until death, or sexually exclusive/faithful. That what Joan told Adam Clymer, author of Edward M. Kennedy: A Biography. In this case, what would be your argument? You have, logically, 2 choices:
Either a consciously fraudulent vow, involving deception of the marriage partner, is a lawful and valid Sacramental act, or
Marriage is still binding on both partners for life, whether one partner deliberately lied or not, whether there was a real sacrament or not, whether it was --- as the Church sees it -- a marriage or not!
Which would be your position?