Marriage Of Communists

Northern Advocate, 17 August 1949, Page 5

Marriage Of Communists

VATICAN CITY Tue. (11 a.m.i-A decree published oy the Vatican today allows priests to perform the marriage ceremony for Communists provided that they promise to raise their children in the Roman Catholic faith. The Osaervatore Romano says that the decree is very opportune because inaccurate interpretations, especially with regard to matrimony, hove arisen as a result of the earliei measure excommunicating militant Communists and barring other' Communists from the sacraments.

A Prague inos:-age says Slovak peasants have threatened to fire their crops if the Communis! authorities molest Roman Catholic clergy. Peasant opposition in Slovakia is reported to be causing the Communists serious embarrassment in the operation of their policy towards the Church.

Already numerous cases have occurred in which fires in farm buildings and crops have caused heavy damage.

Security police attribute the number of recent fires in Moravia to “faulty electrical circuits.” Three were destroyed in SlovakMoravia, and five in Nemochovice, near Bucovice. about 20 miles east of Brno.

Church sources said they regarded the Slovak threat and reported cases of fires as a demonstration of the peasants’ dissatisfaction with the Communist policy towards the Church, and of directing agriculture into “more socialist forms.”