As usual that kind of news seems to be ery upsetting for some of you and i really wonder why ?
Ther annulment was granted on the 18th of novembre, i have seen the paper, but teh comte de paris had nothing to do with the fact that it was granted at this time. He started the procedure more than 30 years ago, it has come to an end last novembre and that is the decision of the holy siege, not his;
Further more, divorce still is a big problem for strict catholics. If you are in such a position you cant' even receive holy communion at mass, therefore you are in state of permanent sin; The comte de Paris has been trying for 30 years to reconcile himself with his church, and finally he did. This is great for him.
I am catholic, but not very strict, but i do admit that in these matters the authority of the pope is absolute; I do not think it concerns me, i hate weddings myself, but i am fine with people believing in it.
Furthermore, i was at the civil wedding, the duchesse de Montpensier actually kissed the current comtesse de Paris, obviously both of them knew about the annulment. Why should we juge? if they don't.
Then, this is not such a rare case, as one of you mentionned, princess maria da Gloria got her annulment from prince alexander of yougoslvia (they had two weddings, one orthodox and one catholic), the curren,t duke of aoste got his too, king henri the VI got his from his wedding to princess Marguerite de Valois, princesse Caroline de Monaco got hers from her wedding to philippe Junot.
They are two ways to look at this decision :
If you are catholic, fine you accept the holy siege decision; The comte de Paris is reconcilied with his faith, he can remary religiously, and that is the end of it.
If you are not, why should you care, that decision does not affect anyone appart from the comte, his first and second wife, and apparently they hace accepted it; Why should we be more strict ?
Furthermore, i think that this story between the comte de Paris and hs second wife is really a love story. During more than 30 years, the all family has given them a very hard time, because they were "in sin". The comte was not invited to his mother's birthday, and both of them were not invited to any family wedding because of their situation. At the end, they started beeing invited at some of them but only at teh reception, not at church...
All this is over, because they ca