Talks Planned On Mixed Marriages

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30264, 17 October 1963, Page 17

Talks Planned On Mixed Marriages

(N.Z .P.A .•Reuter —Copyright) LONDON, October 15. The British Council of Churches plans talks with the Roman Catholic Church on the controversial question of mixed-church marriages.

The council wants to discuss the subject with the new Archbishop of Westminster (Dr. John Heenan), it was announced today by the Rev. Dr. Ernest Payne, of the Baptist Union, at the halfyearly meeting of the council at Bristol.

Dr. Payne said the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland accepted in May a recommendation that with other churches, steps should be taken to endeavour to get the Roman Catholic Church to withdraw its ne temere decree on “mixed marriages.” The recommendation said the decree in Britain since 1908, had made “grievous.

and many would say, wrongful, demands on the nonCatholic party to a so-called mixed marriage.” It had been stated that “mixed marriages'' was among the subjects on which it was to be hoped the second Vatican Council would take positive action if there was a desire for improved relations between the Roman and nonRoman churches. Dr. Payne said.

The British Council of Churches unites the major church bodies of Great Britain and Ireland, except the Roman Catholic Church, for conference and co-opera-tion. The president of the council is the Archbishop of Canterbury (Dr. Ramsey).