Vol 15 Issue 17 ~ Editor: Rev. Fr. Courtney Edward KrierApril 23, 2022 ~ Easter Saturday

1.         Sacrament of Penance
2.         Quasimodo Sunday
3.         Saint Fidelis of Sigmaringen
4.         Family and Marriage
5.         Articles and notices
Dear Reader:

Jesus Christ appeared to His Apostles to comfort them after the traumatic experience of His cruel death on the Cross. The very leaders who should have welcomed the long awaited Messias were the most vehement in demanding His death. It shook the disciples’ faith to the core. They even found themselves abandoning the King of Israel, whom they had just accompanied in His triumphant entry into Jerusalem, the moment temple guards took Him prisoner. Jesus had no one to comfort Him: In thy sight are all they that afflict me; my heart hath expected reproach and misery; and I looked for one that would grieve together with me, but there was none: and for one that would comfort me, and I found none. (Ps. 68:21) But He comes to comfort His followers after and forgive them, which is necessary to receive comfort for they knew they would be miserable without forgiveness.

Again, this consolation, this presence of Jesus Christ in their midst, was not momentary, for only forty days, but intended to be almost an availability whenever the followers of Christ needed to be consoled. What do I mean? In the midst of the Apostles going out into a world of paganism, when they offered Mass, they knew Christ was with them—not forgetting the words addressed to Thomas, Blessed are they that have not seen, and have believed (John 20:29) and giving Thomas’ reply: My Lord and My God! (v.28) As the early Christians were placed in prison, their awaited consolation was receiving Holy Communion, brought by such brave souls as Saint Tarcisius, so they would have Christ with them to face the most cruel deaths. Once the Church was in tranquility from persecution, her faithful built the most beautiful Churches so that Christ would be willing to dwell in their midst and they could visit Him as often as they could, particularly when they needed to have the consolation that He was listening to their prayers. The monks and nuns would feel rewarded to spend their lives singing His praise just for the consolation of dwelling with Him in the monasteries and convents. Where that faith and forgetfulness of His Presence was found among peoples not seeking His consoling Presence but the pleasures of this world, one sees that He leaves. He did so in the East under Mohammedanism, in Northern Europe under Protestantism, in England under a wicked king, and now throughout the world under Ecumenism.

Next time we go to Church, know that Our Lord is there to console us, to be the Good Samaritan, And going up to him, bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine: and setting him upon his own beast, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. (Luke 10:34) Behold I will close their wounds and give them health, and I will cure them: and I will reveal to them the prayer of peace and truth. (Jeremias 33:6) He knows how we feel, but wants to be with us to console us in our pain, in our suffering, in our needs and desperation, listening to us and asking His Father to grant us what we need.

As always, enjoy the readings provided for your benefit.—The Editor

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WHAT IS THE SACRAMENT OF PENANCE

SECTION 2

The Church’s Forgiveness of Sins as a Sacrament

CHAPTER I

The Outward Signs of the Sacrament of Penance

I. Contrition

§ 9. Contrition in General

3. Imperfect Contrition and the Sacrament of Penance

Imperfect contrition suffices for the forgiveness of sin in the Sacrament of Penance. (Sent. communis.)

While the extreme contritionists (Petrus Lombardus, Alexander of Hales, St. Bonaventure, Baius and the Jansenists) demanded perfect contrition for the valid reception of the Sacrament of Penance, the majority of the post-Tridentine theologians firmly insist that imperfect contrition (attritio) suffices. The Council of Trent gave no authoritative doctrinal decision on this point, but it indirectly teaches the adequacy of imperfect contrition by declaring that imperfect contrition without the Sacrament of Penance cannot of itself justify the sinner, but that it disposes to the reception of the grace of justification in the Sacrament of Penance: Et quamvis sine Sacramento poenitentiae per se ad justificationem perducere peccatorem nequeat, tamen eum ad Dei gratiam in sacramento poenitentiae impetrandam disponit. D 898. Clearly there is signified here a proximate and immediate disposition which in conjunction with the Sacrament, is sufficient for the attaining of the grace of justification.

If perfect contrition were necessary for valid reception the Sacrament of Penance would cease to be a Sacrament of the dead, as justification would always take place before the actual reception of the Sacrament; the power to forgive sins would lose its proper purpose, since grievous sins would never be remitted in the Sacrament of Penance (D 913); absolution would have a mere declaratory significance, as Petrus Lombardus in fact taught; the ordinance of the Council of Trent that in danger of death every priest can absolve from every sin and from every censure, so that none would be lost in consequence of refusal of absolution (D 903), would be pointless; the way to the attaining of justification would not be facilitated by the institution of the Sacrament of Penance; on the contrary it would be made more difficult.

4. Contritionism and Attritionism

According to the teaching of the Council of Trent on justification, the beginning of the love of God, the so-called amor initialis, must be associated with imperfect contrition (diligere incipiunt; D 798). During the 17th century a theological controversy developed between moderate contritionists and attritionists as to the nature of amor initialis. While the moderates taught that the initial love must be a formal act of initial charity (initium caritatis), the latter maintained that no formal act of charity, indeed no act of charity whatever, is necessary for the achieving of the grace of justification in the Sacrament of Penance; all that is required is imperfect contrition, even though that springs from the motive of fear of the punishment of hell alone.

In the year 1667, Pope Alexander VII forbade the disputing parties to censure each other until a final decision would be made by the Holy See, but designated the doctrine of the attritionists as the sententia communior (D 1146). In consonance with this declaration it may be assumed that the express awakening of a special act of the love of friendship or even love from self-interest directed towards God is not necessary, as the necessary initial charity is virtually contained

in true attrition, which is an inward aversion from sin together with the hope of pardon.

Since Perfect Charity demands no definite intensity of love, the amor initialis demanded by the contritionists comes to the same thing as the demand for Perfect Charity and thus this theory seems to lead to extreme contritionism.

II. Confession

§ 12. The Divine Institution of Confession and the Necessity of Confession for Salvation

1. Concept and Dogma

Confession is the self-accusation by the penitent of his sins before a fully-empowered priest, in order to obtain forgiveness from him by virtue of the power of the keys (Cat. Rom. II 5, 38).

The Sacramental confession of sins is ordained by God and is necessary for salvation. (De fide.)

Following the example of Wycliffe and of Peter of Osma the Divine institution and the necessity for salvation of the particular confession of sins was denied by the Reformers, even though they recognised its psychological and pedagogical value. They appealed to the teaching of medieval codes of Canon Law which based the necessity of confession on the positive ordinance of the Church alone, for example, the Glossa ordinaria to Gratian’s Decree, and the Panormitanus (= Nicolas de Tudeschis) invoked by Melanchthon. Cf. Conf. Aug. Art. 11 and 25; Apol. Conf. Art. 11 and 12. In opposition to the Reformers the Council of Trent declared: Si quis negaverit, confessionem sacramentalem vel institutam vel ad salutem necessariam esse iure divino, A.S. D 916. Cf. D 587, 670, 724. The commandment of confession resting on Divine ordinance is fulfilled not only by public confession, but also by a secret confession before the priest alone (auricular confession). The validity of auricular confession was asserted by the Council of Trent particularly against Calvin, who stigmatised it as a “human invention.” D 916.

2. Scriptural Proof

The Divine institution and the necessity for salvation of the particular confession of sins is not explicitly expressed in Holy Writ, but it is a necessary consequence of the judicial power to forgive sins. The power of remitting sins or of retaining them can only be properly exercised, if the possessor of the power of penance knows both the sins and the dispositions of the penitent. But the self-accusation of the penitent is necessary for this. Again, the imposition of an atonement approximate to the guilt presupposes a detailed knowledge of the sins committed. Cf. D 899.

The passages 1 John 1,9; James 5, 16; Acts 19, 18, which refer to a confession of sins, do not necessarily refer to a sacramental acknowledgment of sins; in fact they probably do not.

3. Proof from Prescription

If confession had been instituted by the Church it would be possible to demonstrate the date of its institution. No such demonstration can be made. All the historical testimonies imply that it is an institution which goes back to Divine ordinance. The Fourth Lateran Council (1215) did not introduce confession, but merely defined the already existing duty of confession more closely by prescribing yearly confession. D. 437; CIC 906.

The Greek-Orthodox Church teaches the necessity of individual acknowledgment of sins in its official writings on confession (cf. the Confessio Orthodoxa of Petrus Mogilas, Pars I q. 113: Confessio Dosithei, Decr. 15). The Penitential Canons of the Fathers and the Councils, and the Penitential Books of the early Middle Ages presuppose an individual confession of sins.

4. Proof from the Fathers

While the oldest Patristic proofs which speak of a forgiveness of sins (for example, Did. 4, 14; 14, 1), are indefinite, the self-accusation by the sinner of individual sins committed appears clearly as a constituent part of the Church institution of penance in the writings of St. Irenaeus (Adv. haer. I 13, 7), Tertullian (De poenit. 9 and 10), and St. Cyprian (De lapis and in the Letters). The whole process of penance is called exhomologesis (= confession) after the confession of sins.

The first definite testimony of the existence of secret confession in the pre-Nicene era is offered by Origen. After enumerating six other means of forgiveness of sins, he says of the Sacrament of Penance: “There is still a seventh, although it is a hard and laborious one, namely the forgiveness of sins by penance, when the sinner bedews his bed with tears, and when tears are his food and drink day and night, and when he is not ashamed to confess his sins to the priest of the Lord and to seek a medicine to cure them” (In Lev. hom. 2, 4). In another passage Origen distinguishes between a secret and a public confession: “Look carefully around when thou art to confess thy sins. Test carefully the doctor to whom thou art to explain the cause of the disease . . . if he recognises and foresees that thy disease is of such a nature that it should be confessed in the sight of the whole Church (that is, publicly) and that it should be cured, whereby the others also may be edified and thou thyself may easily be cured, then on mature reflection and following the experienced counsel of that physician, this must be fulfilled ” (In Ps. 37, hom. 2, 6).

Pope St. Leo the Great (+ 461) designated the demand for public confession of sins as “a misuse of the apostolic rule,” as a “reprehensible assumption,” as a “custom which cannot be approved” and emphasises that “it is enough to reveal the guilt of the conscience to the priest alone in secret confession” (D 145).

(To be continued)

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The Sunday Sermons of the Great Fathers

M. F. Toal

THE GOSPEL OF THE SUNDAY

JOHN XX. 19-31

At that time, when it was late that same day, the first of the week, and the doors were shut, where the disciples were gathered together, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in the midst, and said to them: Peace be to you. And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. The disciples therefore were glad, when they saw the Lord. He said therefore to them again: Peace be to you. As the Father hath sent me, I also send you. When he had said this, he breathed on them; and he said to them: Receive ye the Holy Ghost. Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them; and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained.

Now Thomas, one of the twelve, who is called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came. The other disciples therefore said to him: We have seen the Lord. But he said to them: Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the place of the nails, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe. And after eight days again his disciples were within, and Thomas with them. Jesus cometh, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said: Peace be to you. Then he saith to Thomas: Put in thy finger hither, and see my hands; and bring hither thy hand, and put it into my side; and be not faithless, but believing. Thomas answered, and said to him: My Lord, and my God.

Jesus saith to him: Because thou hast seen me, Thomas, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and have believed. Many other signs also did Jesus in the sight of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written, that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God: and that believing, you may have life in his name.

ST AUGUSTINE, BISHOP AND DOCTOR

For Sunday the Octave of the Pasch

Christian Compassion

1. The mind of the Christian should be directed towards the future life. Today is for us a day of unending joy, within a great mystery. For not as this day will pass shall that life pass away which this day signifies. Therefore, Brethren, we exhort you, we beseech you, in the Name of Our Lord Jesus Christ, through Whom our sins were forgiven, Who willed that His Blood be our price, Who deigned to make us His brothers, we who are unworthy to be called His servants, that as you are Christians, and bear His Name upon your brow and upon your heart, let all your mind be directed towards that life alone which we shall share with the angels; where there shall be unending peace, eternal joy, unceasing happiness, no disorder, no sadness, no death.

This life no one can know save those who have made trial of it; and they cannot make trial of it unless they believe. For should you ask that we show you what God has promised you we cannot. But you have heard how the Gospel of John ended: Blessed are they that have not seen, and have believed. You desire to see, and so do I. Let us together believe, and together we shall see. Let us not set ourselves against the word of God. For is it fitting that Christ should now come down from heaven, and show us His wounds? And so He deigned to show them to this faithless Disciple, that He might reprove the doubting, and instruct those who would believe.

2. The Mystery of the Seventh and Eighth day. The Kingdom of Christ and of the Sanctified on earth after the severance of the Wicked. The celebration of the Sabbath by the Sanctified on earth.

This eighth day therefore signifies the new life at the end of the world; the seventh the future rest of the sanctified on earth. For the Lord will reign with His holy ones, as the Scriptures say, and He shall have here a Church whither no one evil will enter, cut off from and purified of every taint of wickedness, of which the draught of one hundred and fifty-three fishes is a sign: of which I have, as far as I remember, at some time treated.

For the Church shall first here appear in great splendour and honour and power. Then it shall not be possible to deceive, to lie, to conceal the wolf under sheep’s clothing. For the Lord will come, as it is written, who will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and make manifest the counsels of the heart; and then shall every man have praise from God (I Cor. iv. 5). The wicked therefore shall not be there. For they shall already be cut off. The multitude of the sanctified will appear as winnowed grain heaped upon the threshing floor; and thus will be gathered into the heavenly barn of life everlasting. For as wheat, where it is threshed there also is it winnowed; and the place where the com has been threshed, that it may be stripped from the straw, is adorned by the comely appearance of the winnowed grain. For after the winnowing we see on one side of the threshing floor the heap of chaff, and on the other the mass of wheat. Whither the chaff goes we already know, as well as how the grain gives joy to the husbandmen.

Therefore as the corn appears on the threshing floor before it is separated from the straw, and as after so much labour there is joy at the sight of the heaped up mass of the grain, which was concealed by the chaff, and not seen while being threshed out; then gathered into the barn and stored away; so in that world you shall see how this threshing floor is treaded; but the chaff is so close to the wheat, that this cannot be seen because it is not yet winnowed. Accordingly, after the winnowing of the last judgement the heap of the sanctified shall appear, shining in virtue, strong in their merits, and proclaiming the mercies of their Saviour.

And this will be the seventh day. The first day as it were being all time from Adam until Noah, the second from Noah to Abraham, and the third, as Matthew’s Gospel divides it, from Abraham to David. The fourth from David to the Babylonian transmigration, the fifth from the transmigration to the Coming of Our Lord Jesus Christ. The sixth therefore is counted from the Coming of Our Lord: we are in the sixth day. And so as in Genesis man on the sixth day was formed in the image and likeness of God, so we also in this time, upon as it were the sixth day of the whole of time, are reborn in Baptism; that we may receive again the image and likeness of Our Maker.

But when the sixth day has passed, the Sanctified and the Holy unto God will celebrate the Sabbath, and there shall be rest after the winnowing. But after the seventh day, when the splendid heap, the glory and the merit of the Sanctified, has appeared upon the threshing floor, we shall enter into that life, and into that rest of which it is said: That eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man, what things God hath prepared for them that love him (I Cor. ii. 9).

Then we as it were return to the beginning. For as these seven days end, the eighth then becomes as it were the first: so when the seven ages of this passing world are ended and complete, we shall return to that blessed happiness and immortality from which man has fallen. And concerning this question, the number seven multiplied seven times makes forty-nine; and one being added, as though to return again to the beginning, we have fifty: which number is celebrated by us in mystery till Pentecost. This is seen again by another reckoning, in the distribution of the number forty, to which is added a denarius as wages. Both reckonings come to the quinquagenary number; which multiplied three times, because of the Trinity, makes one hundred and fifty. Adding three, as token and witness both of the multiplication and of the Trinity, by this number of one hundred and fifty-three fishes we understand the Church.

3. He praises the works of mercy. In the meanwhile, till we reach that rest, in this time in which we now suffer, and while we are in this night, as long as we see not what we hope for, while we journey in this desert, until we come to the heavenly Jerusalem, as to the Land flowing with milk and honey, let us therefore, since trials will not cease, let us labour well in good works. Let there be medicine ever at hand, to heal as it were our daily wounds. And there is medicine in the good works of almsgiving. For if you wish to receive mercy from God, let you be merciful. If you as man, deny humanity to man, God will deny you divinity: that is, the incorruption of immortality by which He makes us God.

God has no need of you: but you have need of God. He seeks nothing of you, to be happy: but unless you receive it from Him, you cannot possess happiness. I do not know if you would dare to complain were you to receive from Him Who made all things something perfect which He had created. But He gives you, not something of what He has made, but Himself for your delight: He, the Creator of all things. For what of all He has made can be more perfect, more wondrous, than Him Who made it?

And why has He given it to you? Because of your merits? If you seek for what you merit, think of your sins. Hear the sentence God spoke against sinners: Dust thou art, and into dust thou shalt return (Gen. iii. 19); for when the commandment was given, a warning preceded it: In what day soever thou shalt it eat of it, thou shalt die the death (Gen. ii. 17). If you seek the reward of your sins, what is there but punishment? So forget your merits, lest they awaken terror in your soul; or rather, do not forget them: lest through pride you drive mercy away.

Let us make ourselves acceptable to God, Brethren, by our works of corporal mercy. O praise ye the Lord, for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever (Ps. cxvii. 29). Give praise to God: since He shows us mercy, and desires to forgive the sins of those that praise Him. But let you offer Him sacrifice. Have compassion on man, O man, and God will have compassion on you. You are a man, and the other is a man: two who are unhappy. God is not unhappy; He is merciful. If the unhappy have not compassion on the unhappy, how can he ask for mercy from Him Who shall never know unhappiness?

Pay heed to what I say, Brethren. Whoever is wanting in mercy towards another who has, for example, suffered some disaster, is wanting in feeling for such a man as long as he has himself suffered no disaster. Should it come his own way he will then, should he see another suffer, think of his own past misery and be touched by a fellow feeling. And so he in whom a common humanity awakened no compassion will be moved by a common bond of suffering. How readily that man helps a slave who has been himself a slave? How readily he sympathizes with a servant defrauded of his wages who has been himself a servant? How deeply he grieves for a father mourning his son who grieves himself for the same cause? And so kinship of suffering has power to soften every hardness of the human heart.

If then you who have been in sorrow, or are fearful lest it come upon you—for as long as you live in this world you should be fearful of what you have felt not, and think of what you may suffer, and consider what you are—if then mindful of your own past sufferings, and fearful of what may come, you have no compassion on one in misery and needing your assistance, do you expect Him Whom misery touches not to have compassion on you? You give nothing from what you have received from God, yet you look to God for that which He has never received from you?

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APRIL 24

St. Fidelis of Sigmaringen, Martyr

1. St. Fidelis, called Mark in baptism, was born in 1577, the son of the mayor of Sigmaringen, in Germany. The highly gifted boy was sent to Freiburg in Breisgau to study philosophy and law. After some years of traveling with a group of nobility, he was given a doctor’s degree in both these sciences. In 1612 he established a law practice in Ensisheim, Alsace, where the people called him “Lawyer of the Poor.”

When, however, the brilliant young man came to realize the dangers threatening his soul in this position, he received ordination to the priesthood and entered the Capuchin Order. On October 4, 1613, he was professed as Father Fidelis and began a very successful career as preacher and confessor. He served as Guardian in several monasteries, but then, by request from Rome, he and eight of his brethren carried on missionary work among the fallen-away Catholics of Prättgau. These murdered him on April 24, 1622. In 1729 he was declared blessed, and in 1746, he was canonized. He is also remembered as the author of a precious volume that he called “Exercises of Seraphic Piety.”

2. “You have only to live on in me and I will live on in you. The branch that does not live on in the vine can yield no fruit of itself; no more can you, if you do not live on in me. I am the vine, you are its branches” (Gospel; John 15:3 ff.). St. Fidelis was united to Christ. As a student he felt himself drawn to the Savior, and in spite of his unusual success in studies and the praise of men, he remained humble and pious, determined to preserve his soul from harm.

The occasion for his giving up a secular career was the winning of a certain case in court, in which, through no fault of his, some injustice was done. He gave all his property away and became poor for love of God. He also laid aside his knowledge of law in order to be nothing but an obedient novice and religious. His life was one of recollection and self-denial, for he wanted to die to the world and to live in Christ. With undivided devotion he continued the life of his poor, despised, crucified Master. And because he remained in Christ, Christ also remained in him; for that reason he proved to be a fruitful branch on the Vine, Christ, in his activity as teacher, superior, and preacher. The success of his preaching became known even in Rome, and he was commissioned to labor at winning apostate souls back to the Church. With great enthusiasm and at the cost of many sacrifices, he went to work in the villages scattered throughout the mountainous territory assigned to him. He was deeply grieved at the indifferent, unwilling, and even malicious attitude of the people. A true apostle, he was, however, happy to be privileged to suffer for his Lord; and, eventually, his Master blessed his labors with significant success. “If a man lives on in me, and I in him, then he will yield abundant fruit.”

“The branch that does yield fruit, he trims clean, so that it may yield more fruit.” Fidelis spent Holy Week that year in the monastery. There he learned that the Calvinists of a certain village were planning to murder him; nevertheless, he returned to his work in the mountains. On the way one of his companions asked what they should do, in case the Calvinists attacked and tried to kill them. Fidelis replied: “We shall do exactly what the martyrs did: die willingly for the love of God and in His holy Name.”

With this presentiment of death he made his confession early April 24, and celebrated Mass. The Calvinists sent word that they could not come to that place but would like to hear him in their own church. Fidelis told his brethren that he was sure they had evil designs, but he went obligingly to their church and began preaching. Suddenly there was a great tumult at the church door. A shot was fired, killing a soldier. Another shot, intended for the preacher, struck the back of the pulpit. The people dashed out of the church, but Fidelis knelt in front of the altar to await death. When nothing more happened, he left the church unnoticed and started back to his place of residence. On the way a troop of armed men, accompanied by one of their ministers, overtook him and demanded that he deny his Faith. His answer: “I, Fidelis, (that is, Faithful) should deny my Faith?” One of the men struck him on the head and he fell to the ground. Quickly he rose to his knees and began praying for his enemies, just as the Savior did on the Cross: “Father, forgive them.” A second blow knocked him down again; the murderers fell upon him and pierced his breast with more than twenty thrusts. Then they crushed his head with a club, and his soul hastened away to the joys of heaven.

3. “They will cower at the sight of him, amazed at the sudden reversal of his fortunes! Inward remorse will wring a groan from those hearts: Why, these were the men we made into a laughing-stock and a by-word! We, poor fools, we mistook the life they lived for madness, the death they died for ignominy; and now they are reckoned as God’s own children; now it is among His holy ones that their lot is cast” (Epistle).

When St. Fidelis received the garb and name of a religious he was admonished, “Be faithful (fidelis) until death.” He brought honor to his name. There is something great, and even heroic, in daily fidelity to little things as well as to big ones in activity under obedience, in accepting daily hardships and sufferings, provided everything is offered as proof of one’s love of God. Fidelis kept faith with the Master he chose to follow: “fidelis servus.” Surely, his example as well as his intercession, can be of great profit to us.

Collect: God, who wast pleased to inflame blessed Fidelis with seraphic ardor of soul, and to adorn him, for his preaching of the true faith, with a martyr’s palm and shining miracles, we pray Thee through his merits and intercession so to strengthen us, by Thy grace, in faith and charity, that we may deserve to be found faithful in Thy service even to the point of death. Amen. (Benedict Baur)

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CANA IS FOREVER

COUNSELS FOR BEFORE AND AFTER MARRIAGE

By Charles Hugo Doyle (1949)

Chapter Five: MIXED MARRIAGES ARE DANGEROUS

Worshippers at the shrine of Bacchus may differ as to the potency and merits of various spirituous beverages, but they are unanimous in denouncing the folly of mixing drinks. Such universal accord is due in no small measure to the inevitable pink elephants, splitting headaches, and the-morning-after dejection. Strangely, the untold numbers of broken hearts and homes resulting from mixing religions in marriage have failed to produce similar unanimity concerning its injudiciousness.

In spite of the frequent warnings of the Church against mixed marriages, they continue to take place, and while some turn out well, the vast majority are doomed to failure. Never, in my twenty

years experience in the ministry, have I interviewed young people of different religious beliefs who wanted to marry, without hearing the old refrain: “But Father, our case is different. We have reached a complete understanding about religion. We have decided never to permit religion to interfere with our lives.” And my answer is always the same. “Whether you like it or not, religion will interfere with your life. It is too important, much too important, to be relegated to the background of life.” The proof that difference of religion in marriage does interfere is demonstrated by the fact that it is one of the great causes of separations and divorce today.

The Reverend Robert Good, a Presbyterian minister, addressing a church group in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, said recently that “mixed marriage ought to be avoided at all cost because of the high rate of their failures. Only six per cent of the marriages in which the husband and wife were of the same faith ended in failures as compared with fifteen per cent in the case of mixed marriages.”

Brother Gerald J. Schnepp, S.M., M.A., in his survey made in 1942 for his dissertation entitled “Leakage From a Catholic Parish,” asserted that in “sixty-two per cent of the marriages leading to

separation, one party was Catholic and the other not.” In other words, the percentage was high because of the mixed marriage angle.

Dr. Clifford R. Adams, director of the Marriage Counseling Service of Pennsylvania State College School of Education, and author of the recent book, “How to Pick a Mate,” stated in an article appearing in the September, 1946, issue of “The Woman’s Home Companion” that “Three out of four girls seriously date, at some time, a man of different religion. To a girl in love the matter of religious difference is apt to seem inconsequential. After all, the man she marries will be a freethinking adult. To such girls I point out the jarring fact that my records show that seventy per cent of such marriages now end in divorce or separation.” Now, Dr. Adams should know what he is talking about, since he counsels some four thousand persons a year. Perhaps, after considering well this high percentage of failures in mixed marriages, the Church’s warnings may not seem too exaggerated.

To those who think this problem is solved when they plan to enter matrimony with a person without any religious convictions or beliefs at all, I say that they worsen the condition and merit to be nicknamed after a nationally known decaffeinized coffee, whose advertisements claim “it has no active ingredient in the bean.” “A man without some sort of religion,” says Marvel, “is at best a poor reprobate, the football of destiny, with no tie linking him to infinity and the wondrous eternity that is begun with him; but a woman without religion is even worse—a flame without heat, a rainbow without color, a flower without perfume.”

This much is certain, the single state in life is a thousand times more preferable, in nearly every case, to a mixed marriage. Even in the Old Testament mixed marriages were definitely forbidden. The Jews were not permitted to contract marriage with the Canaanites nor indeed with the Samaritans, who, while practicing heathen ceremonies, kept the law of God and had the books of Moses. God’s abhorrence of mixtures is evidenced by His command in the ancient law: “Thou shalt not sow thy field with mingled seed; neither shall a garment mingled with linen and woolen come upon thee.”

The Church warns her children today against mixed marriages for the same reason that a loving mother might warn her child against undertaking a journey she knows will expose her offspring to great peril. Lowell once said: “One thorn of experience is worth a whole wilderness of warning,” and it has been the sad experience of the Church during her two thousand years that mixed marriages are dangerous both to the faith of the principals and even more so to their innocent children. Let us consider these two angles separately.

That mixed marriages are fraught with danger to the salvation of those who contract them can be amply proved. For instance, the wise and enlightened King Solomon took to himself heathen wives

in his old age, and they prevailed over him so far that, from a worshipper of the true God, he himself became an idolater and allowed temples of the false gods to be erected in his kingdom. Solomon’s folly has been perpetuated down through the centuries by untold thousands who, like him, lost their faith because they failed to marry their own. Take, for instance, the apostasies listed

in the official German civil census for the year 1929. This document shows that 40,000 souls were lost to the Church in Germany in one year through mixed marriages, while the number of converts was only 8,762.

Claire Boothe Luce, in her inspiring apologia entitled “The ‘Real’ Reason,” which appeared in the February, 1947, issue of “McCall’s Magazine,” very frankly states that her mother was born a Catholic but fell away from the Church when she married a non-Catholic. That this very thing has happened to so many others who marry a person of a different faith is easily understood. Human nature being what it is, it is prone to take the line of least resistance. The mixed marriage that is entered into with the best of intentions may result in the loss of faith for the Catholic party in later years. It happens this way. In nearly every mixed marriage the Catholic party honestly believes and hopes that some day, somehow, his or her mate will enter the Church. The danger lies in the fact that the Catholic may suddenly come to the realization that all the good example, tolerance, and patience displayed through many years have in no way brought the other party nearer the faith and thus they grow weary of hoping and praying and gradually lose faith. It is not so difficult to give up doing or believing something that upsets someone we love very dearly. Herein lies the secret of the ultimate loss of faith! Joubert puts it this way: “Religion is fire which example keeps alive, and which goes out if not communicated.”

In the rare instances where in a mixed marriage the Catholic party does not actually suffer loss of faith there is definitely violence done to the essential and complete unity demanded in all marriages. His Holiness Pope Pius XI, of happy memory, pointed this out very clearly in his famous Encyclical “Casti Connubii.” The Pontiff stated: “If the Church occasionally on account of circumstances does not refuse to grant a dispensation from her strict laws provided the Divine Law remains intact, and the dangers already mentioned are provided against by suitable safeguards it is unlikely that the Catholic party will not suffer some detriment from such a marriage.” It was in this same letter that His Holiness listed the two well-known evil effects of mixed marriages—”deplorable deflections from religion” and “religious indifference.”

That mixed marriage is an obstacle to complete harmony is readily understandable. People of different religious beliefs have different philosophies and in marriage these differences take on new importance. When the first glow of the honeymoon is over, a couple with different religious backgrounds may become impatient and even intolerant. Complete unity of mind and heart, complete happiness in such a marriage, is threatened when two persons of different faiths find themselves obliged to ignore the most discussed topic in the world, and by that, I mean religion.

The very thing parties to a mixed marriage wish to ignore, will come into prominence every Sunday of their lives. The Catholic will walk to Mass alone and the non-Catholic will sit alone in his seat in some Protestant church. Both will hear doctrines diametrically opposed to their life partner’s faith. The Catholic may hear in a sermon that the Mass is the continuation of the Sacrifice of Calvary, while the non-Catholic may hear the Mass denounced as idolatrous, sacerdotal trickery; in one edifice the Holy Father may be denounced as a humbug and in the other, at that very moment, the little woman may be contributing a dollar from her husband’s last pay check toward a Peter’s Pence collection. Fundamental differences in religious beliefs invariably form a gulf between two married persons. Such differences are more insurmountable than differences of education, race, culture, or economic standing. Love could be said to be an outgrowth of our recognition of another’s resemblance to ourselves, and where the resemblance is only faint, the love will be faint. The more things two married people have in common, the greater are their

chances of happiness in marriage and the fewer adjustments will be necessary.

Another important thing that must be considered in a mixed marriage is that such a union offers the Catholic party the minimum of matrimonial security. In the case of a serious misunderstanding the non-Catholic may feel free to walk out and obtain a divorce and marry again; whereas the Catholic is bound not to take a second partner as long as the former lives. On the other hand, two practical Catholics, while not exempt from the possibility of grave misunderstandings, will usually avoid the extremes that lead to difficult reconciliations because they know they must reconcile, since divorce for them is out of the question.                                               (To be continued.)

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Father Krier will be on Retreat from April 26-29 at Saint Matthew Monastery in Atlatlahucan, Mor., Mexico. He will be in Albuquerque, NM, (Saint Joseph Cupertino) May 10; Pahrump, NV, (Our Lady of the Snows) May 12; and Eureka, NV, (Saint Joseph, Patron of Families) May 19.

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