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Show j . APPALLING FIGURES. The Divorce Evil as Pictured by Archbishop Messmer. Archbishop Messmer, of Milwaukee, has issued, n Lenten Pastoral letter on the Sacrament of Marriage.. The letter let-ter is arranged so that portions of it will be read for five Sundays and the general topic is subdivided into four sections namely: "The Sanctity of a Christian Marriage; Its Indissolubility; Indissolubil-ity; The Laws of the Church Concerning Concern-ing It and the Christian AA'ay oE Contracting Con-tracting It." Archbishop Messmer goes at great length into his subject, especially in treating the divorce evils. Quoting Pope Leo's word.s on tne evils of divorce the letter cites the following to bear out his statements: "If we had to look for any confirmation confir-mation of these words of Leo XIII., our own fair land offers the proof. It is a story full of horror that we read in 'A Report on Marriage and Divorce Di-vorce in the United States .from 1S67 to 1886,' published under an Tact of1 congress, con-gress, approved March 3, 1887: -j From the tables and 1 statistics herevpublish-ed herevpublish-ed we learn that, while .in, the.-year 1S70 some 10.962 divorces had been .granted, their number in the year lSStr'amounted to 16,663, and in the one year, reached the number , of. 25.S35. From 1867 .to 1886, that is in twenty years, there were granted in all the states'and territories ter-ritories 328,716 divorces. Nor can this rapid increase of divorce be explained by the growth of our population. For the same tables show that while in that period the population of the United States increased SO -per cent, divorce increased 79 per cent. Of the whole number of divorces 65 per cent (i. e. 216,176) were granted to wives petitioning for it, and 34 per cent (i. e. J12.r40 to husbands. "The table on 'Duration of marriage before divorce' . reveals an appalling sight. Taking the years during which married life lasted before divorce, we find the largest number is 27".909 couples cou-ples who lived together four years before be-fore seeking divorce; th next largest number, 27,270, were able to bear their burdens, but three years before seeking seek-ing divorce. while the exceedingly large number of 21,525 sought dissolution dissolu-tion of marriage after two years' experience, ex-perience, and still 15.622 preferred to live as strangers after one year of wedded life. It is surprising to find that 25.371 couples, after living together to-gether 21 years or more, were obliged to seek divorce. AA'hat became of the children? For we find of the 32S.-716 32S.-716 divorces granted in the United States during the 2 years covered by our investigation, the libels or petitions peti-tions in 219,382 cases, or 39 per cent of the whole, stated thai mere were children. The totai number of children chil-dren involved in those cases is 267.730. ' It must be observed here that in 141.-810 141.-810 cases it was unknown whether there were children or not. "But judging from the foregoing we may safely assume.' that within 20 years over 300.000 children were by divorce di-vorce deprived of either father or mother. During1 the 20 years elapsed since that terrible census i-r divorce has been taken, the evil has been going go-ing on, growing at a rapid pace, so 'much so that well informed parties calculate the number of divorces since 1868 till now, not far from three million. mil-lion. AVho can estimate the horrible consequences wrought? And still this evil of divorce goes on. Citizens and j legislatures, states and empires will try in vain to stop it. There is but one power on earth strong enough to hold back, the rushing waters, the Catholic Church, who ever maintains the sacred indissolubility of marriage." Irish Standard. |