When I did the first, deceptively easy, questionnaire from the Diocese of Joliet, I didn't feel anything good or bad. It more or less verified that I was a human American Catholic who had a civil divorce. Then I took it to the pastor, who hauled out a Bible and made me put a hand on it and swear that what I said was true, before he counter-signed it. That impressed me.

The big questionnaire then showed up. Nearly 40 multi-part questions, and I had to answer them twice, once for me, once for my ex-spouse.

During this time, I started to tell people I was filing an annulment and I got a wide array of responses. Only a few of the older members of the family, who think I'm excommunicated because I'm divorced, were happy. A much bigger group of older relatives, who I just assumed were traditional, unintrospective, rule-following Catholics, blew the idea off. Why would I need an annulment? Just get civilly remarried, when the day comes, and go to church anyway, receive Communion no matter what. Not that they went to church anymore.

Most of my friends were puzzled, and I realized that I was admitting, no, witnessing, that I cared about my religious beliefs. It hadn't really hit me until then that we NEVER talked about our religious beliefs, not my friends, not my family, not my co-workers. I kept God in a box.

Ever since college, I'd been rotating towards and away from God, sometimes at daily Mass, sometimes turning my back to the whole thing. Never going the whole way. And, tell anyone I read Thomas Merton? Or went to Mass? Or tried to say the Rosary? Surely you jest.

Now I had to break down the wall just a little, to let people know that I cared enough about my sacramental status in the Catholic Church to file an annulment. And I was going to need a couple of witnesses. The whole thing made me itchy.

Therese Z