THE CATHOLIC VIEW OF MIXED MARRIAGES.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXI, Issue 2540, 20 October 1888, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE CATHOLIC VIEW OF MIXED MARRIAGES.

That persons joined together in the bonds of matrimony may be really happy, it is necessary that there be a harmony of souls ; their aspirations must tend to the same goal. Add to this a mutual understanding and a helping hand to bear each other's burden ; for they are to travel in company to their true home above, aud the way that leads thither is both long and rough. But this essential element of conjugal happiness is wanting in mixed marriages. No matter how great may be the esteem, or how ardent the love the non-Catholic husband and the Catholic wife may cherish towards each other, yet the. wife cannot but feel that her most sacred convictions, and the purest and most pious aspirations of her soul are, if not despised, at least misunderstood by the companion whom she loves. At most, she can cspoct from him but that cold respect which one person professes for the opinions of another whom he believes to be in error. The Church rightly considers as belonging to her all the children born of a Catholic mother ; and, on the other hand, her dread of mixed marriages is well grounded. For, often indeed, the non-Catholic father snatches all of them, or at least the sons, from her fold, that they, like himself, may be nurtured in heresy. But oven though he should endeavour to be entirely disinterested, still, the influence of example on the young minds of his offspring is an evil that should not be under estimated. For the little heart of the child has but one tender feeling of respectful love, which embraces both father and mother. If, then, ho see father and mother separate on Sunday morning, to be present at churches inimical in faith and doctrine, will he not be tempted to believe that both are equally good—that it is but a mere formality to belong to either? And if he inquire why it is that his father goes to one church and his mother to the other, it becomes then the sorrowful duty of the mother to reveal the sad secret, and to inform him that, if he would enter into eternal life, he must not follow his father. How keen the anguish, how deep the sorrow, of the child who loves his father, to think that the dear parent is walking in the valley of the shadow of death ! and how great, in consequence, is the danger for the child ! Truly, then, our holy mother, the Church, has shown herself loth tender and prudent, loving and solicitous, in prohibiting marriages of this kind. The happiness of her children —both temporal aud spiritual—is the most ardent wish of her heart, and her prohibitory law is the means which she has employed to guard them against great dangers.—Catholic Review.