Mixed Marriages

New Zealand Tablet, 20 September 1906, Page 12

Mixed Marriages

The mixed marriage menace is (says the ' Catholic iranscript '), according to unanimous verdict, alarmingly on the increase. Mixed marriages, or the union of persons of different faith, are now counted extremely unsafe ventures. The happiness" of the/ contracting parties is seriously jeopardized. Men' and women who are to spend their lives under the same roof, sharing each other's confidences, hopes, .ambitions, destiny should be in agreement at least on essential points There is nothing, in the minds of the vast maioritv of mankind, as essential as . The Things that Bear Upon Eternity. Religion is altogether concerned with these things Cicero, in his immortal treatise on friendship, declares that there can be no friendship where there is not a perfect- accord in all things human and all things divine. It will be admitted by all that husband and wife should at least be good friends. Bub this old Roman sage declares, and" his -assertion cannot be gainsaid that there can be no friendship worthy of the name where there is not absolute^ accord in all things " diVluC* In alliances where there is disagreement respecting things eternal, the heaviest burden falls upon the Catholic party. His point of view is altogether different His creed forces him to the position that the Catholic religion is the only true religion. Non-Catho-lics admit that one faith is as good as another iney can be at once liberal and logical. When a catholic .becomes liberal he becomes illogical and lacking m allegiance. The Catholic Religion postulates a supernatural order. It believes in mysteres. it stands for the existence of a future life of heaven and of hell. It inculcates, faith in a personal Uod, m a personal devil, in the life of the soul when separated from the body. It requires its votaries to subscribe to the dogma of the divinity of Christ, His resurrection, His coming to judge the world at the end of time. It is full of dogmasdogmas which must be accepted under pain of excommunication. Now, to the mind which rejects -nearly every one of these truths such belief is superstition, pure and pernicious. And it will require consummate acting and superb tact on the- part of a dissenting husband or wife to run through a lifetime without betraying some sort of contempt for the sacred tenets of 'the Catholic party. Distrust, disquietude, pity, and impatience at the weakmindedness of all who seriously subscribe to such absurdities are but natural to those who look on and doubt. There is nothing - that inal c ?, uch a . n irre Parable shock upon the sensitive as the full realisation that what is dearest to them in life is held In Suspicion and Slight Esteem by those who are nearest. Then there are generations yet un-born to be looked to. The child accepts Ms father as his hero. A word from either parent has the force of an oracle from on high. When the husband and wife are not in agreement respecting the ™£-^' to whom can t/he o ffs i>Mng appeal for light ? Whichever way he goes, he turns his back upon father or mother His filial piety is submitted to the severSf* * <*}• + Hls + . l°y aJ . t £ to the faith of his father is disloyalty to the faith of his mother. One need not investigate far before finding the natural results of such anomalous association. Observation teaches the sa,d lesson that faith declines as mixed marriages increase. Catholic parents do not indeed favor them, but they frequently reserve their opposition tijl attachments are formed till promises are exchanged arid till the young people grow so far enamored of each other as to be practically convinced that the evils which . naturally attend mixed marriages will not obtain in their altogether exceDtional case. And so the die is cast. ' _ , It is true, to say of such alliances that the die is cast. They are "pre-eminently a hazard. You make your throw and await your possible chance of winning. Meanwhile the chances are ten to one against Nor will it avail to say that there are plenty of unions between men and women of the same faith which are far from being cast in pleasant places. AdwL ted V But why should depth be added- to depth ? wny should extraneous and grievous causes for heart burning and discontent be deliberately invoked? If it is dangerous to toy with a revolver, the hazard is heightened when you play with two— especially if the second is loaded -and cocked.