This story does nothing but bring a smile to my face. Up here in MA. this annulment was considered a joke by nearly everyone except Joe Kennedy. No one could understand how a marriage of 12 years that produced two children could be rendered to have never happened by the Church. Many people were disgusted by the situation.
Imagine the signal this sent to his two boys? "Sorry boys but the marriage that created you was just deemed to have never happened by the Catholic Church".
Of course Kennedy still got what he wanted, he was able to get married again in the church so this decision by the Vatican probably has no real effect on him.
http://news.bostonherald.com/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=1007558By Jessica Van Sack
Thursday, June 21, 2007 - Updated: 01:31 AM EST
The Kennedy dynasty’s renowned clout with the Catholic Church was shaken yesterday by news that the Vatican overturned the annulment of former U.S. Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy II’s first marriage.
But his former wife - victorious in winning the reversal - suggested that the famous clan was still receiving special treatment.
“I understand he found out a while ago,” said former Kennedy wife Sheila Rauch, who was informed by the church last month, two years after the fact, that the Vatican’s top Romana Rota court reversed the stinging annulment that rendered invalid her 12-year-marriage, a union that produced twin boys.
Rauch, 58, a professor at Wheaton College in Norton who wrote a book about her fight against the annulment called “Shattered Faith,” said she doesn’t know how Kennedy learned before she did that she’d won her appeal.
Kennedy had sought the annulment to validate his second marriage to his former legislative aide Beth Kelly in the eyes of the Church.
“The reach and the power of the Kennedy family is not what it used to be, and that’s just another example of that,” said Fred Bayles, a professor at Boston University’s College of Communication. “Times have changed. There’s just no magic there anymore.”
Kennedy still could appeal the decision to another judicial panel in Rome. Neither he nor his aides could be reached for comment.
The decision came 12 years after Rauch initiated the appeal to the Vatican after the 1993 annulment. And it has brought her a bit of closure after what she called “a long haul.”
“When the children were young we thought we had a very good, strong marriage, and that’s the marriage my children were born into. It’s important to recognize that,” Rauch said in an interview with the Herald. “The Church was saying they were not children of a marriage that was valid.”
But there’s a flipside to Rauch’s victory, theology experts say: the Catholic Church considers her married despite their civil divorce in 1991.
“Yes, he’s still married to Sheila, (in the eyes of the church),” said the Rev. Harvey Egan, theology professor at Boston College. “It’s bizarre.”
But allies of Kennedy warn of reading too much into the Vatican’s slap.
“I don’t think this will have any impact on their future successes,” said Steve Grossman, former chairman of the Democratic National Committee.
Grossman predicted at least one of the couple’s 26-year-old twin sons, whom he knows personally, will go on to a successful political career.
The toll is more a personal one for Joe Kennedy, who probably won’t be receiving Communion anytime soon. “This is certainly a setback for them,” Grossman said of Kennedy and his current wife, whom he called “a very happy and fulfilled couple.”
Kennedy received better treatment than Rauch early on, during his 1993 quest to annul his marriage, said the Rev. Tom Doyle, 62, a canon law specialist. Both were interviewed by a Boston diocesan tribunal, but Rauch was treated “cavalierly.” Doyle helped guide Rauch through the often bureaucratic appeal process, advising her to take her case straight to the top.
“I advised her to appeal to Rome, where she would have a more objective decision,” Doyle said.
But even when Rome finally ruled on the case 12 years later, it took two years before Rauch received a letter in the mail last month saying a decision had been made.
It’s part of a long tradition of disparate treatment in the church, said Peter Borre, co-chairman of the Council on Parishes.
“Jackie’s Kennedy’s sister Lee Radziwill obtained herself the Vatican annulment at a time when they were as rare as Red Sox [team stats] World Series rings,” Borre said. “There has been a tradition of annulments granted to the rich and powerful within the Archdiocese of Boston.”
