Mixed Marriages

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXIII, Issue 10, 9 March 1905, Page 1

Mixed Marriages

Some years ago the following unique ad\ertiscmcnt appeared in a Pans newspaper . ' A young man of agreeable presence, and desirous of getting mairied, would like to make the acquaintance of an aged and experienced gentleman who could dissuade him from tuning Uie tatal stop. 1 The c a us€ of Christianity would be notably advanced in TTieso countries if each of then had am active corps of ' aged and experienced gentlemen ' who would bond their oirergias, with a goodly measure of success, to dissuading young men and maidens from taking the ' fatal step ' into a mixed mairiage A generation ago the learned Dr. lUlaUiome, Bishop of Birmingham, said of such unions. ' Knowing from long observation and experience the troubles and sorrows that in most oa^es follow from them , knowing how many Catholics lose their faith through them ; well aware how others slacken from their religious duties, or grow indifferent to them, and how many, alas ' incur the awful responsibility of seeing their children lose the faith ; I seldom receive an application to grant the Church's dispensation for such marriages without suffering; anguish

of heart, which the custom of doing so tends rather to inciease than to diminish.' 'in except ional cases,' says the Archbishop of Melbourne, ' the Church grants her dispensation, if -not willingly, at least with a conviction t,hat there arc solid reasons for the conces&ion. . . . But in the great majority of cases, whjere no legitimate cause for the marriage exists, and where'the Chunk's dispensation is gi anted— or, lather, extorted Irom necessity, to pi event greater evils— the rcault of mixed marnages is, if not a total loss of faith, at least a great lowering and disintegration of religious practice.'

In Geimany a regular census of changes of religion is kept, aiul the results ot mixed marriages form the subject oi cuiious and instructive statistical returns. The lesson to be learned fiom them is this : that CatholMMii is the greatest loser and infidelity the greatest gainei by mixed marriages. 'In Prussia,' says a writer in a nee cut issue of the London ' Tablet,' ' during t lie vc\u I'Kid we lca-n that 381 ,'),).}, or 56 per cent., of the c-hildicn ot mixed marriages were being reared as Piotestants, and only 201, (JOl, or '13.3 per cent, as Catholics. In Baden the same result is chronicled, wjUie m Hesse the Protestant gain is not so marked. For the other States there arc no ofhcial statistics, but if we aio to trust the figures supplied by the Protestant ministers, frhc loss to the Church is in many places even greater than m Prussia. According to these, 7(i.')i) per (out. of Lhe children of mixed marriages i n Bavaria are baptised as Protestants, 91 per cent, in Saxony, (10.27 per cent, in Wurtcmbiirg, and only in Alsace- Lorraine docs ti'ie percentage fall under 50. From all those figures,' '•ays our London contemporary, ' it is evident that, though in many ways the Church is making gieat progress in Germany, yet the evil of mixed manuges has been a source of serious loss, and, if some remedy be not applied, may prove a source of still greater in the iuti.re."

But in Germany, as in these countries, the real gain f om mixed marriages is not to Protestantism, but to infidelity. This is mote sharply marked in the second and succeeding q-enerai ions, and it is one of the many factois that have combined to turn 'Germany, the cradle of the Reformation, into the grave of the Reformed faiths. Vnbehel is rampant m the Fatherland. Its consequences (says the Protestant author of ' Christian Life in Germany ') ' aie showing themselves with a distinctness which is justly folt to be alarming. These have appeared in a tendency towards brutality in crime, and e\an in the pleasures which the uncultivated classes

of society seek.' In these countries and in America the situation is aggravated by the purely, secular education under which the great majority of the children of mixed marriages are dragged up. .lust over three years ago the agents of the (Protestant) Young Men's Christian Association in the United States, acting ijn cooperation with the Federal Census Bureau, collected statistics on the subject under consideration. They were summarised in ' Association Men,' tihe organ of the Young Men I1 '' Christian Asocial ion Tfe.re is an extract, from the s-umimary which tells its own tale (the capitals are ours) .— ' In families where the father and mother belong to the same Church, 78 per cent, of the young mem anChurch members. In families where the father and mother are Church members, but do not belong to the same Church, only 55 per cent, of the yaung men arc Church members. In families where but one of the parents is a Church member, only 50 per cent, of the young men are members of Churches. Where the father and mother are both Catholics, only 8 PER CENT, of the young men are not Cliurch members. Where the father anti mother axe both Protestants, 32 por cent of the ycvu,ng men are not Church members. Where one of the parents is a Catholic and the other a Protestant, 66 per cent, of the young do not belong to a Ghiurch. Where tihe parents are members of Protestant Churches, but do not belong to the same Church, 50 per cent, of the young men of tnes-e famiiiejs are not Chlurch members. Where one of the parents is a Catholic, 41 per cent, of the young men do not belong to Church. Where one of the parents is a Protestant, 51 per cent. do not belong to Ohurch.'

Our young men and women would do well to cut out these extracts and paste them, the former in tiheir hats, the latter on t»heir mirrors. And when they ccntemiplate a mixed marriage, let them, like the cautious young Parisian, seek out some ' aged and experienced ' pcrsion who will • dissuade them from taking the fatal step.'