Excellent. A valid marriage is indissoluble. Period.
The annulment process is the Church investigating if a valid sacramental marriage ever took place, not simply making up excuses to justify a civil divorce. We should always be tender hearted with the civilly divorced, but being charitable never means covering up charity or trying to soften the truth of the matter.
For simplicity I would say "a valid marriage"; if one or both parties are not baptized, it will not be sacramental, but it is still presumed to be valid. E.g. suppose two unbaptized people had a civil wedding and a civil divorce several years ago, then one of them becomes Catholic and wants to know whether he or she could date and marry in the future: he or she would need to go through the annulment process for that first attempted marriage to find out.
Excellent. A valid marriage is indissoluble. Period.
The annulment process is the Church investigating if a valid sacramental marriage ever took place, not simply making up excuses to justify a civil divorce. We should always be tender hearted with the civilly divorced, but being charitable never means covering up charity or trying to soften the truth of the matter.
Yup! I didn't touch on the actual annulment process in this post, but the questionnaire is quite extensive.
> if a valid sacramental marriage ever took place
For simplicity I would say "a valid marriage"; if one or both parties are not baptized, it will not be sacramental, but it is still presumed to be valid. E.g. suppose two unbaptized people had a civil wedding and a civil divorce several years ago, then one of them becomes Catholic and wants to know whether he or she could date and marry in the future: he or she would need to go through the annulment process for that first attempted marriage to find out.
Is it common for Catholics to leave the church if they are unable to receive an annulment?
I don’t know!