Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, September 5, 1993 TAG: 9309050028
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: BOSTON LENGTH: Medium
The church never recognizes legal divorces, but it grants annulments - more often than in the past - for a variety of reasons.
Without an annulment, Catholics can't remarry and remain in good standing in the church, which teaches that marriage means forever.
Sheila Kennedy said her 12-year marriage to the congressman didn't fit a church requirement for annulments: that a "sacramental bond" never existed.
"If our marriage were deemed never to have existed in the eyes of the church, then our children, like others of annulled marriages, would have been neither conceived in nor born to a sanctified union," she wrote in a letter to Time magazine.
The couple have 12-year-old twins, Matthew and Joseph.
In July, Kennedy, D-Mass., announced his engagement to Anne Elizabeth Kelly, his staff scheduler. No wedding date has been set. Kennedy, 40, is the eldest son of the late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy and Ethel Kennedy.
"I am not going to lie before God about the birth and conception of his kids, just so he can have a big church wedding," Sheila Kennedy told The Boston Globe.
Kennedy's spokesman, Brian O'Connor, wouldn't comment.
"It's a personal family matter," O'Connor said.
Church leaders said annulments have no bearing on children in the marriage.
Sheila Kennedy was raised as an Episcopalian. They were married in an ecumenical ceremony at St. John Baptist Vianney Catholic Church in Gladwyne, Pa. Catholic and Episcopal clergy jointly presided.
The annulment process usually takes six months to a year, said John Walsh, spokesman for the Boston Archdiocese.
An annulment request is investigated by a church tribunal, which hands down a decision after a formal hearing. It is then examined by a regional tribunal; if the two tribunals disagree, the case goes to the Vatican.
Walsh said the church has tried to keep up with modern culture when considering annulments. Psychological factors that probably weren't considered valid 25 years ago now are considered, he said.
by CNB