Stop stop Zobel, you're in danger of being called an orthobro.

In summary:

Heads I win

Tails you lose.

Those Catholics used their time wisely to really nail down the nitty gritty of Shrodingers sacrament here. If she didn't want kids and revealed it later we've go ourselves an annulment.

If she didn't want kids, but changed her mind in her marriage. We just don't have a Catholic marriage anymore but a natural marriage performed by a Catholic priest.

Incredible.

Let's move on I want to discuss the treasury of merit and purgatory now.

one MEEN Ag said:

---

In summary:

Heads I win

Tails you lose.

Those Catholics used their time wisely to really nail down the nitty gritty of Shrodingers sacrament here. If she didn't want kids and revealed it later we've go ourselves an annulment.

If she didn't want kids, but changed her mind in her marriage. We just don't have a Catholic marriage anymore but a natural marriage performed by a Catholic priest.

Incredible.

Let's move on I want to discuss the treasury of merit and purgatory now.

---

This is a great summation of the shallow level thinking you've brought to the conversation with every post. Mocking. Ignoring your own church's historical teaching. Offering no alternative.

Let's try it this way: What is a marriage?

Zobel said:

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St Paul is saying that the Christian is not under an absolute obligation to prevent the unbelieving spouse's departure, or as St John says below, they're not under bondage or an obligation. It is not saying marriage is a contractual slavery from which a person can be contractually freed via a juridical rule.

Second, that is reading a concept into the text which isn't there. We don't have to manufacture a general category of dissoluble marriages to understand this particular pastoral instruction. There is no reason to believe he wrote this to be understood as a broader universal rule.

You can (and should) read this as what St Paul is answering: if you become a Christian, what happens to your marriage?

You're not unclean by being married to them (in fact it is the other way around) and you should not divorce them even if they don't become Christian. If they want to leave you, let them leave, you're not in bondage. Be at peace (as opposed to some kind of force).

St Paul does not say "here is a general principle under which certain marriages can be dissolved" much less supply a general taxonomy of dissoluble versus indissoluble marriages. Or render the one kind of marriage never happened. He answers one pastoral question about conversion within an existing pagan marriage and subsequent abandonment.

Here is St John's homily. Bold emphasis mine.

Quote:

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However, he does not simply recommend cohabitation with the unbeliever, but with the qualification that he wills it. Wherefore he said, And he himself be content to dwell with her. For, tell me, what harm is there when the duties of piety remain unimpaired and there are good hopes about the unbeliever, that those already joined should so abide and not bring in occasions of unnecessary warfare? For the question now is not about those who have never yet come together, but about those who are already joined. He did not say, If any one wish to take an unbelieving wife, but, if any one has an unbelieving wife. Which means, If any after marrying or being married have received the word of godliness, and then the other party which had continued in unbelief still yearn for them to dwell together, let not the marriage be broken off. For, says he, the unbelieving husband is sanctified in the wife. So great is the superabundance of your purity.

What then, is the Greek holy? Certainly not: for he said not, He is holy; but, He is sanctified in his wife. And this he said, not to signify that he is holy, but to deliver the woman as completely as possible from her fear and lead the man to desire the truth. For the uncleanness is not in the bodies wherein there is communion, but in the mind and the thoughts. And here follows the proof; namely, that if you continuing unclean have offspring, the child, not being of you alone, is of course unclean or half clean. But now it is not unclean. To which effect he adds, else were your children unclean; but now are they holy; that is, not unclean. But the Apostle calls them, holy, by the intensity of the expression again casting out the dread arising from that sort of suspicion.

Yet if the unbelieving departs, let him depart, for in this case the matter is no longer fornication. But what is the meaning of, if the unbelieving departs? For instance, if he bid you sacrifice and take part in his ungodliness on account of your marriage, or else part company; it were better the marriage were broken*, and no breach made in godliness. Wherefore he adds, A brother is not under bondage, nor yet a sister, in such cases. If day by day he buffet you and keep up combats on this account, it is better to separate. For this is what he glances at, saying, But God has called us in peace. For it is the other party who furnished the ground of separation, even as he did who committed uncleanness.

For how do you know, O wife, whether you shall save your husband? This again refers to that expression, let her not leave him. That is, if he makes no disturbance, remain, says he, for there is even profit in this; remain and advise and give counsel and persuade. For no teacher will have such power to prevail as a wife. And neither, on one hand, does he lay any necessity upon her and absolutely demand the point of her, that he may not again do what would be too painful; nor, on the other, does he tell her to despair: but he leaves the matter in suspense through the uncertainty of the future, saying, For how do you know, O wife, whether you shall save your husband? Or how do you know, O husband whether you shall save your wife?

---

I starred the word above because New Advent renders this "anulled". St John Chrysostom writes beltion diaspathenai ton gamon - "better that the marriage be torn apart/broken up." The verb diaspao means to tear asunder, separate, or break apart, not to declare a marriage juridically null. A few lines earlier he similarly says ho gamos ede dialelytai - "the marriage has already been dissolved." The older English translation "annulled" therefore means "dissolved" or "broken" not "annulled" in the later technical canonical sense.

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Thanks for a well thought out challenge, and it led to me taking another look. You and I both agree the fathers should have pride of place, should be read in their entirety, compared to the Church at large, and are capable of error.

Chrysostom is not contrasting an absolute obligation to make the non-believing spouse to stay with no obligation to make them stay. No partner can force the other to stay, short of physical threat. That doesn't work.

It's the other way around. The marriage is only valid if both parties choose it willingly. Hence this quote from your excerpt

Quote:

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Yet if the unbelieving departs, let him depart, for in this case the matter is no longer fornication.

---

Meaning un-Christian marriages have the potential to be mere fornication, despite it being called "marriage".

Simplifying God given mariage to two people saying "we're married" undervalues what God actually instituted.

Quote:

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Meaning un-Christian marriages have the potential to be mere fornication, despite it being called "marriage".

Simplifying God given mariage to two people saying "we're married" undervalues what God actually instituted.

---

No, sorry. He is referring back to his previous points in the same homily. The homily opens up with fornication, or really with marriage and the marital duties as a guard against it, and mentions specifically that porneia allows for separation. Then he examines why the pollution of idolatry itself does not corrupt a marriage in the same way.

Quote:

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How then in this case is the uncleanness overcome, and therefore the intercourse allowed; while in the woman who prostitutes herself, the husband is not condemned in casting her out? Because here there is hope that the lost member may be saved through the marriage; but in the other case the marriage has already been dissolved; and there again both are corrupted; but here the fault is in one only of the two. I mean something like this: she that has been guilty of fornication is utterly abominable: if then he that is joined to an harlot is one body, he also becomes abominable by having connection with an harlot; wherefore all the purity flits away. But in the case before us it is not so. But how? The idolater is unclean but the woman is not unclean. For if indeed she were a partner with him in that wherein he is unclean, I mean his impiety, she herself would also become unclean. But now the idolater is unclean in one way, and the wife holds communion with him in another wherein he is not unclean. For marriage and mixture of bodies is that wherein the communion consists.

Again, there is a hope that this man may be reclaimed by his wife for she is made completely his own: but for the other it is not very easy. For how will she who dishonored him in former times and became another's and destroyed the rights of marriage, have power to reclaim him whom she had wronged; him, moreover, who still remains to her as an alien?

Again in that case, after the fornication the husband is not a husband: but here, although the wife be an idolatress, the husband's rights are not destroyed.

---

Then he moves on to the passage, "Yet if the unbelieving departs, let him depart" because this means the other spouse is conditioning idolatry or faith to God on the continuation of the marriage.

In other words, the Lord says to not separate except in cases of adultery (porneia). But here, the matter is no longer a question of porneia. Loosely, it is no longer whether there has been porneia sufficient to justify dissolution, but whether preserving the marriage requires abandoning fidelity to God, and it is better for the marriage to be torn apart than for piety to God to be torn apart.

That's why he concludes "For it is the other party who furnished the ground of separation, even as he did who committed uncleanness." In other words, the spouse who tells you that you must sacrifice to a pagan god is the one who justifies divorce in the same way as the one who commits adultery does. You are not bound to such a person.

https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/220119.htm

Captain Pablo said:

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T dizl televizl said:

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Not sure anyone gives a **** about my opinion but figured I could at least share my story

I was married in a Methodist church to a girl I thought I would remain married to forever. She ended up running around on me less than 2.5 years in. I tried to forgive her with help of a pastor and she continued sleeping with this man who was married (and who's wife was pregnant by the way)

We ended up getting divorced.

Years later I'm getting married again to a woman who was raised catholic. I look into the annulment process so that we could potentially get married in the Catholic Church (big deal for her family) and was immediately like nope not for me.

The way I understand is they try to find some reason that you or your wife didn't enter the marital bonds with good intentions or to follow how the church defines marriage. They also reach out to your ex I believe to interview them.

For me I would love to pretend like I never married my first wife, but I wasn't going to play a game of pretend. Idk maybe she never intended to be married to me long term, but I sure thought she did when we got married and said our vows and all the hardships I went through trying to make things work.

When I got divorced the religious shame side of it was really hard on me. And I'm not trying to say people should get divorced just Willy nilly, but in hindsight if I could've let go of that part of it sooner. My journey would've been a lot healthier.

So I guess TLDR I'm not a big supporter of annulment and if you are getting divorced you aren't alone (by a huge magnitude) and try to be easy on yourself because there's a lot worse stuff going on in the world for god to worry about than if two adults aren't compatible.

---

Thanks for sharing. Not too long at all.

So, I would think your experience is not uncommon at all. A previously married protestant, who does not believe in the annulment concept. And frankly, I don't blame them. It really does seem like the height of absurdity, especially when a couple was married for decades.

I know of an annulment that was granted following a 36 year marriage.

I know a person who was catholic, got divorced, got annulment, and then left the church because the annulment process was so traumatic, and in this person's eyes, a ridiculous, intrusive, painful waste of time. By the end of it, this person had had it. And I can see why.

But I think to better understand it, remember what we're focusing on. Divorce is a problem, but not THE problem. It's remarriage of one or both of the parties.

I think as a non-Catholic, one has to realize where it's coming from. And quite frankly, when you do that, you realize it's it's pretty clear and logical, and in my opinion, a good faith effort on the part of the church to reconcile the strict view of scripture, while dealing with the reality that divorces and remarriages happen

So what are they looking at? Well, the gospels. And for all those who accuse the Catholic Church of not following the Bible, this is about as "bull's-eye" clear as it gets.

Mark 10
Luke 16
Matt 5 & 19 (with exceptions)

Are you into sola scriptura? Well there it is.

The Catholic Church, and for centuries, most Christian denominations, pretty much treated this as non-negotiable

But there's the reality, and there's also God's promise of forgiveness

So how do you reconcile this? Well, tue Church views marriage as forever. Unbreakable. So when reality hits, in the annulment process, the Catholic Church sets out to see if the original marriage was valid. And if not, well, there's annulment. And in seeking this, the key word is "valid". It's not "non-existent" or "never-happened". It doesn't mean children born of that marriage are illegitimate. It basically means, in the manner, Context, and intent it occurred, was it a valid sacramental marriage as recognized by the Catholic Church? And remember this, a marriage outside the Catholic Church can still be a Sacramental marriage. How? Well, it depends

And that is the way the church decided to handle it.

Me personally? When it comes to re-marriage, either God forgives, or he doesn't. Everybody stands before God, and we will find out then.

For whatever reason, my life has crossed paths with I would say a disproportionate number of Catholics, who have divorced and wanted remarriage. Many, many situations, and contexts. Some got annulments, some didn't, some left the church

In my opinion, the church has come up way short when it comes to how to deal with this, and short of the pastoral approach that I would like to see

I do not disagree with The Banned at all. He's right

Yet I still would like to see a change in the way the church deals with this. Because now you have sadness, isolation, and a feeling of ostracization. People try to come to Christ through the church. And the church brings people to Christ. But in the context of remarriage, instead of doing that, they push them away from and deny them the very essence of the mass itself, the body and blood of Christ.

Just my opinion, and I don't have the answer as to how that would look. I just wish the church would come up with a better pastoral approach

(Hey look, Pablo Serna and I have something in common)

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On top of all this, it is the most moral, conscience-stricken, devout, knowledgeable people who are driven away. The scofflaws will do anything to get the annulment rubber-stamped.

The episcopals are very grateful for the divorced and devout saints who have been cast off by the RCC.

So are we saying there's no remarriage in Christianity? An adulterer(remarried) barred from salvation? Whose way is better? The Catholic Annulment? The once saved always saved just marry and remarry? Ignore it? Permit it with a strongly worded letter?

FTAggies said:

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So are we saying there's no remarriage in Christianity? An adulterer(remarried) barred from salvation? Whose way is better? The Catholic Annulment? The once saved always saved just marry and remarry? Ignore it? Permit it with a strongly worded letter?

---

lol that about sums up how Christian denominations have chosen to deal with Mark 10, Luke 16, and Matt 5 & 19

Prot - Meh. No biggie
RCC - Let's pretend it never happened
EO - That "strongly worded letter", so to speak. (Heck, sometimes they'll even let you have TWO of them!)

One of the reasons I keep coming back to this forum is for thoughtful discussions about theological aspects of the human experience, in this case marriage.

While we each view this topic from our respective religious or non-religious lens, I think we can agree that the idea of marriage is uniquely human and something that separates us from other animals. I believe this is because it is a sacred covenant between a man, a woman, and the creator for the formation of the family.

For the Catholic Christian this is particularly important as we believe that this covenant is more than a contract, although we use legalistic language and a framework to ensure its protection; it has been elevated to the level of a sacrament by Christ himself. Recall that a sacrament is a visible sign of the invisible reality of God's grace. As with baptism or holy orders, this spiritual mark is indelible- cannot be removed.

Believing this as we do, it is imperative to understand the reality of that promise at the time it was made. A priest can be laicized, a change of state that prohibits certain ministerial functions, but a married person is not so easily discharged from the solemn promise they made on their wedding day to the other person. As it is written, that no one can separate what God has joined.

What then of the couple that has fallen out of love or the abusive spouse or the children? Understanding the nature of this is the purpose of the tribunal charged with administering the annulment petition. As the witness, the church has an obligation to ensure the sanctity of this sacrament even when doing so can be seen as intrusive or meaningless to one of the spouses.

The goal is to protect the institution of Holy Matrimony in a changing world that does not always see this very human event in the light of God's grace.

PabloSerna said:

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One of the reasons I keep coming back to this forum is for thoughtful discussions about theological aspects of the human experience, in this case marriage.

While we each view this topic from our respective religious or non-religious lens, I think we can agree that the idea of marriage is uniquely human and something that separates us from other animals. I believe this is because it is a sacred covenant between a man, a woman, and the creator for the formation of the family.

For the Catholic Christian this is particularly important as we believe that this covenant is more than a contract, although we use legalistic language and a framework to ensure its protection; it has been elevated to the level of a sacrament by Christ himself. Recall that a sacrament is a visible sign of the invisible reality of God's grace. As with baptism or holy orders, this spiritual mark is indelible- cannot be removed.

Believing this as we do, it is imperative to understand the reality of that promise at the time it was made. A priest can be laicized, a change of state that prohibits certain ministerial functions, but a married person is not so easily discharged from the solemn promise they made on their wedding day to the other person. As it is written, that no one can separate what God has joined.

What then of the couple that has fallen out of love or the abusive spouse or the children? Understanding the nature of this is the purpose of the tribunal charged with administering the annulment petition. As the witness, the church has an obligation to ensure the sanctity of this sacrament even when doing so can be seen as intrusive or meaningless to one of the spouses.

The goal is to protect the institution of Holy Matrimony in a changing world that does not always see this very human event in the light of God's grace.

---

Can you explain how annulment protects the institution of marriage that doesn't sound like No True Scotsman or marital calvinism?

AGC said:

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PabloSerna said:

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One of the reasons I keep coming back to this forum is for thoughtful discussions about theological aspects of the human experience, in this case marriage.

While we each view this topic from our respective religious or non-religious lens, I think we can agree that the idea of marriage is uniquely human and something that separates us from other animals. I believe this is because it is a sacred covenant between a man, a woman, and the creator for the formation of the family.

For the Catholic Christian this is particularly important as we believe that this covenant is more than a contract, although we use legalistic language and a framework to ensure its protection; it has been elevated to the level of a sacrament by Christ himself. Recall that a sacrament is a visible sign of the invisible reality of God's grace. As with baptism or holy orders, this spiritual mark is indelible- cannot be removed.

Believing this as we do, it is imperative to understand the reality of that promise at the time it was made. A priest can be laicized, a change of state that prohibits certain ministerial functions, but a married person is not so easily discharged from the solemn promise they made on their wedding day to the other person. As it is written, that no one can separate what God has joined.

What then of the couple that has fallen out of love or the abusive spouse or the children? Understanding the nature of this is the purpose of the tribunal charged with administering the annulment petition. As the witness, the church has an obligation to ensure the sanctity of this sacrament even when doing so can be seen as intrusive or meaningless to one of the spouses.

The goal is to protect the institution of Holy Matrimony in a changing world that does not always see this very human event in the light of God's grace.

---

Can you explain how annulment protects the institution of marriage that doesn't sound like No True Scotsman or marital calvinism?

---

It doesn't "protect marriage"

This thread reminds me of what Fulton Sheen said

> There are not one hundred people in the United States who hate The Catholic Church, but there are millions who hate what they wrongly perceive the Catholic Church to be

one MEEN Ag said:

---

In summary:

Heads I win

Tails you lose.

Those Catholics used their time wisely to really nail down the nitty gritty of Shrodingers sacrament here. If she didn't want kids and revealed it later we've go ourselves an annulment.

If she didn't want kids, but changed her mind in her marriage. We just don't have a Catholic marriage anymore but a natural marriage performed by a Catholic priest.

Incredible.

Let's move on I want to discuss the treasury of merit and purgatory now.

---

I guess I don't understand what's hard about understanding the concept: openness to children is a necessary condition for a sacramental marriage to be confected.

I actually have a dog in this fight, unlike about 99% of the people commenting.

I'm pursuing my own annulment now. Have been for well over two years now. And. It sucks. People who claim it's "too easy" or just the Church rubber-stamping divorces... charitably I will say are simply ignorant.

Amazing to me that people will argue about this when their opinions on this are about as formed as a 12-year-old's prefrontal cortex.

Drum5343 said:

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I actually have a dog in this fight, unlike about 99% of the people commenting.

I'm pursuing my own annulment now. Have been for well over two years now. And. It sucks. People who claim it's "too easy" or just the Church rubber-stamping divorces... charitably I will say are simply ignorant.

Amazing to me that people will argue about this when their opinions on this are about as formed as a 12-year-old's prefrontal cortex.

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I didn't say it was easy

I said it's a legal fiction concocted by the church to provide a loophole
so people can remarry and still receive the sacraments

Which it is

Captain Pablo said:

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Drum5343 said:

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I actually have a dog in this fight, unlike about 99% of the people commenting.

I'm pursuing my own annulment now. Have been for well over two years now. And. It sucks. People who claim it's "too easy" or just the Church rubber-stamping divorces... charitably I will say are simply ignorant.

Amazing to me that people will argue about this when their opinions on this are about as formed as a 12-year-old's prefrontal cortex.

---

I didn't say it was easy

I said it's a legal fiction loophole concocted by the church to provide a loophole so people can remarry and still receive the sacraments

Which it is

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I think if that's your opinion on why the Church instituted the process for seeking a declaration of nullity... you're ignorant. The USCCB has a decent FAQ on this. Surprised it hasn't been posted yet.

Zobel said:

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I recognize that this is by every reasonable expectation an emotional issue for you. Im sorry you're having to go through this. So, if we shouldn't have this discussion, or if it becomes unproductive I will probably not continue - just out of respect for you, if that's ok?

//

I think it is not a "people who disagree with this are dumb or ignorant" kind of question, though.

Your framework here that a person has to be open to kids for a marriage to be sacramental is clear, but the inverse is proposed in the post you quoted that isn't really answered. What if the wife or husband is secretly not open to kids, but they have kids anyway? Or if they change their mind a year in? Is that never a sacramental marriage? Does it become a sacramental marriage even if the original "contract" was defective?

The challenge here is that it is quite clear from a historical perspective that this is a choice made by the bishops of Rome in how they will administer. In other words, it is a kind of economy. This doesn't limit their ability to do that, if the bishop says so it is so, God gives such authority. But this also doesn't make this choice immutable, or theology proper (Moses had the authority to give writs of divorce because of the same authority and administration or economy and wasn't wrong in doing that). And it also doesn't mean that those of us not under the authority of the RCC - and under bishops with the same authority, who have made different choices in this matter - are 1) bound by your bishops administrative principles or 2) somehow disallowed from critiquing the consequences of this administrative framework. Because it does have consequences, even if those consequences are found in clear examples of abuse.

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I'm no canon lawyer, but if there was some defect in the conditions required for a sacramental marriage to come into being... then yes, the marriage is not a valid sacramental, indissoluble marriage. Simple as.

Also, it's important to know that a *simple error* that does not determine the will is *not* sufficient to invalidate the conferral of the sacrament. But that gets pretty deep into sacramental theology and canonical jurisprudence pretty fast.

I'll put it another way:

Is it possible to consent to enter into a marriage if any of the following are missing?

• the spouses are free to marry;
• they are capable of giving their consent to marry;
• they freely exchange their consent;
• in consenting to marry, they have the intention to marry for life, to be faithful to one another and be open to having and raising children;
• they intend the good of each other

I also don't expect non-Catholics to believe it or understand it. The Catholic teachings on the indissolubility of marriage and the resulting teaching on annulments are built on about 100 different presuppositions about the nature of the Church, the nature of human beings, etc etc. So of course someone who believes Catholicism isn't true isn't going to accept that the Church's teaching on annulments.

But for people to say "lol annulment is just divorce for people who can't have divorces *wink wink*" is either 1) ignorance or 2) willful hatred.

So you don't know if your married or not til a Bishop and/or tribunal determine so.

Would this not apply to all Catholics?

Well I guess you never know if your marriage is sacramental ever, truly, because your spouse could have lied about wanting kids or something and that could always come out later. You can only know for sure if it wasn't if the bishop says it wasn't. I guess.

Drum5343 said:

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Captain Pablo said:

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Drum5343 said:

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I actually have a dog in this fight, unlike about 99% of the people commenting.

I'm pursuing my own annulment now. Have been for well over two years now. And. It sucks. People who claim it's "too easy" or just the Church rubber-stamping divorces... charitably I will say are simply ignorant.

Amazing to me that people will argue about this when their opinions on this are about as formed as a 12-year-old's prefrontal cortex.

---

I didn't say it was easy

I said it's a legal fiction loophole concocted by the church to provide a loophole so people can remarry and still receive the sacraments

Which it is

---

I think if that's your opinion on why the Church instituted the process for seeking a declaration of nullity... you're ignorant. The USCCB has a decent FAQ on this. Surprised it hasn't been posted yet.

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That is some serious self ownage, dude. Do you read your material before you post the link? A lot of what you posted is about an annulment in the context of remarriage.

Why are you even getting an annulment? Are you remarried? Are you planning on getting remarried?

Drum5343 said:

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I also don't expect non-Catholics to believe it or understand it. The Catholic teachings on the indissolubility of marriage and the resulting teaching on annulments are built on about 100 different presuppositions about the nature of the Church, the nature of human beings, etc etc. So of course someone who believes Catholicism isn't true isn't going to accept that the Church's teaching on annulments.

But for people to say "lol annulment is just divorce for people who can't have divorces *wink wink*" is either 1) ignorance or 2) willful hatred.

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Now you are just being dramatic, throwing a fit, and name-calling

Come on, man

Zobel said:

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Yeah man, I think you have completely missed the actual form of my point. What I'm saying is the very definition of marriage as based on consent is not a theological fact but an economic administrative choice by the RCC. So arguing about that is not addressing the main issue.

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So is it possible to enter into a valid marriage without consenting to the marriage? God will bestow sacramental marriage on you without your consent?

Zobel said:

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Well I guess you never know if your marriage is sacramental ever, truly, because your spouse could have lied about wanting kids or something and that could always come out later. You can only know for sure if it wasn't if the bishop says it wasn't. I guess.

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Why would God make it otherwise?

Why would God bind me *for life in an indissoluble fashion* to someone who deceived me on the day of our wedding about something fundamental to the nature of marriage

[not necessarily sharing my actual personal situation - just the hypothetical "me"]

The answer is very clearly he would not.

Does that mean that sacramental marriage is therefore dissoluble by nature? Therefore making Jesus a liar?

edit: I worded a transpose

Was Jacob married to Leah?

And I will note it is not God binding you for life but your bishop.

Zobel said:

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Was Jacob married to Leah?

And I will note it is not God binding you for life but your bishop.

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Yes he was. Though it couldn't have been a sacramental marriage, but rather a natural one. Since neither he nor Leah were baptized christians.

Is your opinion that there is no such thing as a marriage that is indissoluble?

Zobel said:

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Man, this implies that no one was married ever until… when exactly?

Was St Peter married to his wife? Sts Joachim and Anna? Sts Elizabeth and Zechariah?

If people were not married until they were "Christian" what was the divorce of Moses in the Torah about? Why would our Lord speak about that as marriage?

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I have answered your questions directly. Why won't you answer mine? I don't even quite understand what you believe about what marriage is, or if you think there is such a thing as a distinction between a natural marriage and a sacramental marriage.

You don't seem to be discussing in good faith.

If you dont think I'm discussing in good faith I don't think you're going to find anyone who will meet your standard. Not for nothing, you previously suggested I am calling Christ a liar, which doesn't really feel like a good faith engagement. Can we set these sort of jibes aside?

You are begging the question by defining indissoluble. The actual RCC terminology and framing is a premise I reject. So, I'd need to break indissoluble down to a definition to engage with. If you're asking do I believe there is something akin to a contract, and that is indissoluble, no. I don't understand marriage in that way.

If you're asking if a bishop can, by their authority, administer marriage in this way, and have binding authority over their flock such that it is real, yes - I do. So, a person in submission to an RCC bishop is in submission to such a teaching, and is in error / disobedient to their bishop if they go against it.

But there's quite a problem with saying that Jacob and Leah are not married, and pointing to the words of the Lord, because He talks about the divorce given by Moses, but says in the beginning it was not so. So when is the beginning? Before the Torah, yet you say "baptized Christian marriage".

Even if you want to get this down to ontology, and say that there is a change that happens in marriage, even this isn't indissoluble in an absolute ontological sense because the Lord says "except" does he not? Ontology doesn't have exceptions.

So - again - was St Peter, Sts Elizabeth and Zachariah, or Sts Joachim and Anna married? What about the wedding the Lord blessed with the miracle at Cana? Devoid of grace?

I already said that yes, Jacob and Leah were married.

And yes all those other folks you mentioned were also married.

But who said anything about "devoid of grace"? Not me. Just because something is not a sacrament doesn't mean it has no grace. That's not what Catholics believe about non-sacramental marriages.

Pretty clear now to me (thank you for clarifying) that you reject the Catholic definition of what marriage is, and so I'm not sure why we're bothering to have a discussion.

Christ's "exception" that you reference is interpreted by the Catholic Church to mean a marriage that was unlawful (or invalid...) to begin with. So it's not some category of valid marriages that can then be invalidated by the bishop or whatever, as you say. I'm sure you already knew that response.

But, of course, it sounds like you would reject the Catholic Church's authority to interpret the verse in this way. Which is your prerogative and goes to my earlier comment re: Of course it wouldn't make sense for you to accept the Church's teachings on marriage/annulment if you reject the other prior three dozen or so necessary conclusions. Much in the same way that I probably would reject many of the finer points of your faith tradition (whatever it may be) because I don't accept the teaching authority of your tradition.