This morning’s Los Angeles Times has an opinion piece by Sheila Rauch Kennedy. The subject, unsurprisingly: annulments.

A decade ago, the Catholic Church tried to annul my marriage. My former husband, Joseph Kennedy II, wanted to remarry and stay in the good graces of the church; to do so, he needed the ruling. Despite 12 years of marriage and two children, a tribunal of the Archdiocese of Boston decided that our union was never valid; nor were our children the offspring of a true Catholic marriage.

I did not agree with the archdiocese’s decision. I was sure our marriage, though failed, had been real, and I appealed to the Vatican. Finally, this May, I learned that Rome agreed with me; the Vatican reversed the 10-year-old decision of the Boston archdiocese.

I am grateful for the Vatican’s intervention, and yet the news is bittersweet: Many Americans who might want to defend their marriages as I did are never told that they have the right to take their cases to Rome. Instead, they are intimidated by a process that has proved ripe for abuse.

I also have empathy for the 6 million divorced Catholics in the U.S., a significant number of whom, like my former husband, wish to remarry and remain eligible to participate in the sacraments of communion and confession. But because the church does not recognize divorce, under current Catholic law the only way they can do that is to first procure an annulment through their local and regional church courts.

Given this hard line, many see easy annulment as the church’s well-intentioned attempt to address divorce and remarriage among its members. Yet the prevalence of annulments in the United States — 90% of annulments decided in U.S. church courts are granted; roughly 57,000 last year alone — has also led many theologians to question whether the Catholic Church is truly protecting its marriage sacrament. In many cases, the process has become cruel, dishonest and misguided, prompting church lawyers to caution that the procedure itself may violate Catholic law.

This is something that will undoubtedly resonate with many Catholics — a growing number of whom have suffered through the pain of divorce and the anxiety of annulment. (I know one or two family members who have gone through the process and can attest: it’s not easy, or quick.) Kennedy ends up arguing that our sister churches, the Orthodox, have a simpler, saner approach.

Any thoughts?