Alice Bassett-Smith was married, and now she is not. She and her United States-born husband married in 2000, lived together in both New Zealand and the US, divorced in 2008 and have both moved on.
So, she was stunned when telephoned “out of the blue” by a Catholic priest a month ago and told her former husband had applied to a church marriage tribunal in the US to have their marriage annulled.
If the annulment is granted, her marriage would be considered by the church to have never existed.
“It’s ridiculous. My husband and I were not Catholics and our marriage was nothing to do with the Catholic Church …