I totally do not agree that this is right however there are legitimate grounds for annulment:

-ligamen (prior bond)
-sacred orders
-impotency
-retarded
-under age
-blood relation or child of adoption
-spiritual relation (baptism or confirmation sponsor)
-disparity of cult without dispensation
-murder previous partner to remarry
-previous public vows of celibacy without dispensation
-kidnapping of bride
-intention to not have children/refusal to consummate marriage
-exclusion of fidelity
-lack of form
-coercion

Doesn't it seem obvious that under the conditions a sacrament could not be conferred?

I believe most US annulments are for "lack of form" (civil ceremony, Vegas little white chapel, beach at Hawaii, etc).

Another issue to consider is that someone who is ex-communicated "latae sententiae" cannot receive any sacraments until it is lifted.  Imagine how many Catholics are ex-communicated for participating in an abortion and don't know they are ex-communicated and go through an NO church wedding?  Their marriage is invalid.

I don't believe the mother is excommunicated "latae sententiae." It appears that anybody facilitating or encouraging the abortion is excommunicated.

Quote from: SJB

I don't believe the mother is excommunicated "latae sententiae." It appears that anybody facilitating or encouraging the abortion is excommunicated.

That was changed in the 1917 Code of Canon law.  Women who have abortions are excommunicated.

http://www.ewtn.com/expert/answers/abortio2.htm

Yes, canon 2350, yet if the mother is unaware of the censure it is not incurred and she may be absolved by her parish priest with no reservation.

Contrast this:

Quote

Pius XII's address on October 3, 1941 to the Roman Rota:

    As regards declarations of the nullity of marriage, everyone knows that
    the Church is rather wary and disinclined to favor them. Indeed if the
    tranquillity, stability, and security of human intercourse in general
    demands that contracts be not lightly set aside this is still more true
    of a contract of such importance as marriage whose firmness and
    stability are necessary for the common welfare of human society as well
    as for the private good of the parties and the children and whose
    sacramental dignity forbids that it be lightly exposed to the danger of
    profanation.

with this:

Quote

In the early 1970s the incidence of annulment began a meteoric rise, increasing at a rate without precedence in Church history. In 1968 the entire American diocesan tribunal system granted fewer than four hundred "formal case" annulments--those requiring trial by a tribunal. Another one hundred or so decrees of nullity were granted administratively, without benefit of trial. Within ten years, hardly an eyeblink in two millennia of Church history, several diocesan tribunals were each issuing more decrees of nullity annually than had been previously granted in any one year by the American Church as a whole. In 1979, for example, the Archdiocese of Chicago's tribunal granted approximately 1,100 annulments, roughly double the total granted by all American tribunals a decade before.  

Viewed cross-culturally, annulment data provide stunning comparisons. The Church in the United States, by a wide margin, has been annulling far more marriages than the rest of the Catholic world combined. In 1980 tribunals worldwide processed 89,065 cases judicially and administratively. Of that number 63,962 (72 percent) emanated from America's busy tribunals. Back then, Vatican statistics published in English did not provide the number of annulments actually granted. Cases processed cannot be equated with decrees of nullity. But at the very least they show that American tribunals were hyperactive compared to tribunals in the rest of the Catholic world.

The 70s is when more states started to adopt no-fault divorce laws.

Doesn't that NO also have married deacons that they basically substitute for priests? I thought deacons should only be seminarians.

Quote from: SJB

Yes, canon 2350, yet if the mother is unaware of the censure it is not incurred and she may be absolved by her parish priest with no reservation.

And they won't be aware of it if people say they aren't excommunicated for it.

The problem is the validity of the absolution if and when the grave sin is confessed. Excommunication is mean to be a deterrent to crime and the excommunication reserved to the Bishop isn't applicable if the censure was unknown. This isn't my opinion but the opinion of moral theologians.

If we were better off and there were convents that accept 40yo women, I would try to join one when my son reaches adult age. I don't think it's that weird that older people - especially converts want to be religious. If I had known about convents when I was 11, I would have been counting down the days until I could join one. I prayed almost all the time then until I was 13.

There's a Carmel in Northern California that will take older postulants.

http://www.motherofgodcarmel.org/docs/vocations.php

Quote from: SJB

The problem is the validity of the absolution if and when the grave sin is confessed. Excommunication is mean to be a deterrent to crime and the excommunication reserved to the Bishop isn't applicable if the censure was unknown. This isn't my opinion but the opinion of moral theologians.

I don't understand what this means.

If the excommunication is reserved, then special faculties are required for valid absolution.

Quote from: Tiffany

Doesn't that NO also have married deacons that they basically substitute for priests? I thought deacons should only be seminarians.

The NO has what they call Permanent Deacons.  They are typically older (say 40+) married men.  They can baptize and marry, I don't know if they can preach or bury.  They cannot say "Mass".  If a deacon's wife dies first he cannot remarry.  

I saw one NO bulletin and the contact info for the "deacon" was actually listed as "The Deacon Couple" and had the wife's name included!!!

That is all I know about them.

Marsha

The Novus Ordo "permanent" deacons can do all things the priest can do except say Mass, hear confessions, or give Extreme Unction (as if the priests are doing those things).  They do indeed give the homily at the Novus Ordo, read the Gospel, and officiate at funerals (if there is no Novus Ordo service).

The restrictions on not marrying if the wife dies is no longer in effect in the Novus Ordo, which represents another absolute break from Apostolic tradition.  In the archdiocese I am in, I have read of permanent deacons who have married after becoming a deacon, who have married after being widowed, and who have married after divorcing (and, of course, having the marriage "annulled" by the bishop).