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Show Hon - gatftoiic fineries. Our Objections to Mixed Marriages - Why is the Catholic church so bitterly bitter-ly opposed to the marriage of Catholics with Protestants? If you consider it wrong why do you grant a dispensation for money? What does your church require of me u Protestant if I marry a Catholic-girl? Catholic-girl? Must I be baptized and join your church? Can a Catholic and Protestant be married first by a priest and afterwards by a minister to please the husband's Protestant parents? Why is not the marriage celebrated in the -church? The Catholic church has always disapproved dis-approved of mixed marriages, because: First. The Catholic party is in great danger of losing his faith. How frequently fre-quently a strong-minded unbeliever who daily ridicules all that a woman holds dear, or a bigoted Protestant, who only manifests his hatred of the Coolie Co-olie religion after marriage, is the cause of apostacy of a week-minded, in-devout, in-devout, and ill-instructed woman. In a non-Catholic environment, as in tho Southern States, many such souls have drifted away from the church. Second. The possibility of the children being reared non-Catholics. How often the Catholic party dies, and the non-Catii-olic marries again, bringing up all the children in alien faith. Moreover, the example of an unbelieving lniffen-tit lniffen-tit or ratholic-hating parent will have a pernicious influence upon the children, unless counteracted in strong measure bv the other parent., the church and the school. Add to this fact that many men refuse to allow their children to Ce bapSed in the Catholic fa It . despite de-spite their written promise to that er feet Third. The unhappiness that often of-ten "follows in the train of such marriages. mar-riages. The non-Catholic, too, may at anv time secure a divorce and remarry, while "he Catholic cannot do so without previous sin. Fourth. The essentially SSffi moral principles n; marriage relations held by P,otes"n" generally and Catholics, with regard to divorce, abortion, the limiting of fam- 11 The Catholic church grants a dispensation dispen-sation from the ecclesiastical law -forbidding mixed marriages, because. she hope in certain particular cases hat dierse evils may be obviated. ea-down ea-down three conditions list. Bom parties must promise that all the cn dren be reared in Catholic faith. &ec ond The Catholic must promise to dfeverything Possible-by praye, - good example and pursuasion-to bring tn.. nor, Catholic to the true faith. DiSensations are. never granted tor anything which is absolutely wrong er Sinful or against the divine law. Ihe cannot be bought, but the stipends pi?" are simply fines imposed only 0:1 those who caA readily pay them for the exception of the ordinary law of the tJe ring l ""ess of lhe chUr' TfTlieCathoHc parly ?"f ' a f , lid is cu ore from all share Sngyis! ?fUJvnthe Iriest, " ho would be bouna "Series -here the civil law re- fuses to recognize e Catho riage as legau ine 1 lity of a Ro- to go r0. before a state of-called of-called civil marriage oe privileges. ficial i!lfiTfl;Deara V before th FioVZ?' no religious SSiflcance whatever. Catholic. Doctrine Defined Does the Catholic church regard the marriage of Protestants valid, or can a Protestant be divorced and marry again on entering your church? Two baptized 'Protestants (for instance, in-stance, a Methodist and a Lutheran), who are married without being subject to any of the diriment impediments of the church, are as validly married as two Catholics, for they receive the sacrament sac-rament of matrimony, which binds until death. The Catholic church has no power to dispense in the divine law, Which absolutely prohibits divorce. Must Catholics believe that the human race dates from the year 4004, B. 'C. Does not modern science give the lie di-I di-I rect to the Biblical chronology with regard re-gard to the antiquity of man? By no means. Catholics are perfectly perfect-ly free to form their own opinion upon this question, which has never been defined de-fined by the church. The Abbe Moigno writes ("Splendeurs de la Foi," ii. p. 612): "The exact date of the creation of man, of his first appearance ap-pearance upon the earth, remains entirely en-tirely uncertain or unknown; but there would be some rashness in carrying it back beyond 8.000 years." Another distinguished scholar. Abbe Hamard ("La Science et l'Apologetique Chretienne." p. 31), says: "That it is necessary to adopt the chronology of the Septuagint, as affording us notably more time, we are convinced; but we fail to see any reason for carrying this chronolngv beyond the S,C00 or 10,000 years which it affords us as a maximum." maxi-mum." Father Zahm, after a careful discussion discus-sion of the question in four articles of the American Catholic Quarterly (1893) pp. 225-248, 562-588, 719-734; 1894. pp. 560-272), thus sums up: "The evidence we have examined regarding the age of our race proves one thing, and proves it most conclusively; and that is, that the question we have been discussing is far from being definitely answered by Scripture or "science, and according to present indications it seems improbable that we shall ever have a certain answer an-swer regarding this much controverted topic. The testimony of astronomy does not, as such, make either for or against the Biblical chronology, because nstronomv as a science was not cultivated cultiva-ted until some thousands of years after the advent of man on earth. The testimony testi-mony of history, and especially the history his-tory which takes us back farthest the history of Egypt and Assyria, Chalde.i and Babylonia admirably corroborates the testimony of the Bible concerning the antiquity of man. The sciences of linguistics, ethnology and physiology have discovered nothing that is incompatible incom-patible with 'the acceptance of the chronology of Scripture as understood by our most competent apologists. The statements of geology and prehistoric archaeology are so vague and conflicting conflict-ing and extravagant that nothing definite defin-ite can be gathered from them beyond Ihe apparently indisputable fact that the age of our species is greater than the advocate of the Hebrew and Samaritan Sa-maritan texts of the Bible have been wont to admit. It may, however, be asserted positively that no certain geologic geo-logic or archaeologic evidence so far adduced is irreconcilable with archaeology archaeo-logy that we are warranted in deducing from the known facts and geological record of the Book of Books." (American (Amer-ican Catholic Quarterly, vol. xix. pp. 269 270; Sir J. W. Dawson. "Modern Science' in Bible Lands;" Vigoroux. "Manuel Biblique," vol. i; "Les Livres Saints," vol. iii.) |