Sunday, August 30, 2009

Teddy's Wife

The NYT does a soft profile of Vicki Kennedy, in case you were wondering.
But here's the thing for this recovering Catholic.
They both shared a deep religious belief, supposedly.
And were able to marry inside the Church because?
Well, he had his marriage to Joan annulled and I haven't seen any discussion about the grounds for that.
She divorced her husband before she met Teddy and, presumably, also managed an annulment.
Guess I'll see what Wiki dug up.

UPDATE: So Wiki says they married in a civil ceremony, which implies she didn't get an annulment of her first marriage. So in the Church's eyes, Teddy was living in sin with a divorced woman, and unless he made a deathbed renunciation of this sin, was technically not entitled to Church burial.
I know, I know, who cares? I don't care personally, it's just this cafeteria Catholicism that interests me because the Church I knew was all about sex. When my mother converted, my parents had a Catholic marriage ceremony, of which I remember nothing except that I was there.
I've had several younger Catholic colleagues who lived with spouses-to-be before marriage, unapologetically.
No wonder the Vatican was indifferent to Teddy's passing. Benedict's a strict constructionist on things like this, not to mention the abortion support by American Catholics like Kerry and Kennedy.

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