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Show TAKE MARRIAGE OFF THE BARGAIN COUNTER ''That Is the Only Cure for the Divorce Evil," Says Father Pardow. ''We are trying to take matrimony from the bargain bar-gain counter and place it in the sanctity of the church. That is the only cure for the divorce evil."" , . The speaker was Rev. William O'Brien Pardow, S. J. He was addressing a meeting at St. Patrick's Cathedral, Xew York, on Dec. 22. under the ausy pices of the Daughters of the Faith. "When the Pope speaks about engagements between be-tween man and woman," said Father Pardow, "and insists upon their being drawn up in writing, he does not at all say that man and woman could not become engaged without having the matter down in writing. He refers to engagements that are broken bro-ken through fickleness, not when they are broken for good reasons. "As everything connected with the great sacrament sacra-ment of matrimony is in a certain sense complicated, compli-cated, it is desirable that the teaching of the Church become absolutely familiar in our minds. The Church is doing everything that can be done to make people more serious and more careful about engagement. The sanctity of marriage means the preservation of society, of the home, of the country. . "We are working shoulder to shoulder with other denominations to stamp out the awful evil of divorce. In the last twenty years there have been 1.300,000 divorces in other words. 2,600,000 men and women have broken the vows they took before God. Everybody who has the interest of this great country at heart is interested in keeping down the terrible evil of divorce. "Selfishness is the cause of divorce. It will always al-ways be found on one side or the other. Sometimes there is the great selfishness of being unfaithful. "If you loosen the ties of the Bible, you loosen the ties of matrimony. Modernism is the cause of this loosening of the ties of the Bible, and therefore there-fore a cause of divorce. "An awful mistake made by our Protestant brothers is to state that there are only two sacraments sacra-ments baptism and the Lord's Supper and that matrimony is a contract. The Catholic Church declares de-clares there are seven sacraments, and one of the most holy and important is the sacrament of marriage. mar-riage. "Our brothers of the Episcopal church make a great mistake in allowing divorce for the statutory offense unfaithfulness. "When the state says: 'This is only a contract, so many pounds of flesh for so many pounds of flesh,' is it not degrading? The state says: "I have the right to all legislation about matrimony because it is a contract One should despise such a doctrine. The first law of matrimony was pronounced pro-nounced by God Himself, when there was no state in existence only two human beings. "Surely no state will say God Almighty submitted sub-mitted this union to state legislation! Where was a state? There was none! The law of matrimony is primeval. It precedes all legislation of any kind. It is promulgated by God Himself." |