Last month, Daniel Nichols over at Caelum & Terra blogged an entry entitled An Open Wound, in which he shared the news of couple that he and his family knew and with whom had once been close having received an annulment. They had been married over twenty years and were blessed with nine children, whom they homeschooled. The couple had in all manner been devout, articulate, exemplary Catholics. After some amount of time, however, the wife left her husband and eventually applied for and obtained an annulment. An annulment is a finding from the Church that sacramental marriage, which Catholics hold to be unviolable, never happened. And Mr. Nichols’ reaction to this news, and any sane person’s reaction would have to be,
[I]f they can get an annulment, anyone can!
…
That the Church has come to this–providing excuses for sins against God and man–is a scandal, an open wound in the Body of Christ.
Lord have mercy.