Hrothgar, it is true that the religious institution of marriage goes back farther than the civil institution of marriage. But, just as the example you cited, the institution of marriage prior to a couple hundred years back, was one of the aristocracy, not the common folk.

All societies have *traditions* of recognizing a couple coming together to create a household that goes back to ancient times, but the institution of marriage as it is known in the West was, until modern times, an institution of the aristocracy.

As to the sacraments themselves, they are the rituals that hold Catholics together as a community, because each of the seven sacraments celebrates an aspect of human life which is defined as sacred to the church community. That is why it SHOULD be a big deal and RARE to get an annulment, but if you are an influential and powerful man in the church community, a Kennedy say, it is easy pickings to get an annulment, and deny your previous wife and children ever lived with you in the supposed sanctity of marriage.

I see this issue as no different really. There are priests who will refuse Kerry, and priests that won't. But I don't think Kerry will be attending a church anytime soon, where he would be denied communion. Unless he thinks he could get some political mileage out of it, of course.

I too was raised Catholic, and I do love many aspects of the Catholic community I feel myself to be part of through family, colleagues, and friends. But it is just this sort of shit that caused me to jettison the church from my life at a very young age, and never look back.

Catholic Worker and Liberation Theology types have been persecuted, ostracized, and excommunicated by both current and past right wing, fascist cardinals and popes, and I want no part of them, or their church.