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THE BULLETIN OF THE CATHOLIC LAYMEN’S ASSOCIATION OF GEORGIA 3 THOSE MIXED MARRIAGE PROMISES By a Layman. The Church requires of a non-Catholic marrying a Catholic, a solemn promise not to interfere with the Catholic party’s religious duties, and to rear the children of their marriage in the Catholic faith, and to study the teachings of the Church and enter her communion when convinced it is the true Church of Christ. Why does the Church exact these promises of a stranger to her fold? In the first place, she loves peace. Peace is the great gift of God to the Christian world, and the home is its most natural abiding place. What is more beautiful than a peaceful home! Here, are the most intimate, the most lasting and the sweetest of all human relations. Here, is the spring and center of our truest affections. Here, Memory in happy recollection dwells; Hope, with fairest promise fills the hours, and Love, the bene diction of our lives. makes light our burdens, pains and cares. But oh, sad the home that Peace hath fled! “Peace be unto you!” was the first greeting ol the Risen Christ to his Blessed Apostles. And again He said to them: “My peace I leave unto you.” That is why the Catholic priest whenever he crosses the threshold of a home, no matter whose it might be, makes the sign of the Cross and says: “Peace be unto this house and to all who dwell therein”. That is why the Catholic Church endeavors by all means in her power to promote peace in the home. The Church strives first of all for religious unity in the family. She knows the place of religion in our lives. She knows the power of religion over our hearts. She knows that though there may indeed be a truce to quarreling in a household divided, that peace which passeth all understanding cannot there abide. She rejoices in a family where father and mother and children can all kneel together, and join in the same prayers. She exhorts and pleads with her children to marry within her fold. But the Catholic Church is both a wise and kind Mother. No human affection is strange to her, and she is harsh with none. She realizes that where people of various religions mingle together in social life, so-called mixed marriages must ensue, and here, though reluctantly, she will sanction them. Before she does, however, she would safeguard the faith of the Catholic party, of whom she requires a solemn promise to observe the duties of a Catholic, with which the non-Catholic must promise not to interfere. The promise exacted of the Catholic is in order to preserve the faith; that exacted of the non-Catholic is in order to insure peace. Both parties are required to join in the promise to rear the offspring of their union in the Catholic Church. This is the natural thing for the Catholic to do. When two Catholics marry they assume with out any promise as a matter of course to rear their children Catholics; no obligation in their whole lives is more imperative and binding, than that. Parents teach their children what to eat, how to dress, and many other things for their good; shall they neglect to teach them the truths of religion? That is a thought forbidden to one who even faintly realizes the priceless value of our Christian Heritage. It is unthinkable to true Catholic parents, whose first and greatest concern for their children is to see them baptized and instructed in the Church. In the case of mixed marriages while the Catholic party joins in the promise to rear the children Catho lics, in order that the non-Catholic may not appear to promise more than the Catholic, the non-Catholic makes the promise for its own sake and for the sake of peace. The Catholic already is bound by the sacredest obligation that could lay on his soul. He knows beyond a doubt that his eternal salvation de pends on his adherence to the Catholic faith, and he could not but fear for the salvation of his children without that same blessed faith. His conscience would give him no peace and his soul would not rest unless he should do all that man can do to transmit to his children the heritage of the Faith whose truth his Catholic ancestors for centuries suffered and died to attest to the world. What was the use of those centuries of suffering; why need the Apostles submit to martyrdom; why need a hundred popes give up their lives; why need the faithful for three hundred years endure deadly persecution, if a Catholic parent may be indifferent to the faith of his children? Naturally, the non-Catholic has no such feelings in regard to the Church, and hence that promise is needed to bring his conscience into harmony with that of the Catholic in respect to their children Having promised to rear them Catholics, the non- Catholic parent is in this respect laid under the same obligation as the Catholic parent, and there is no occasion for the peace of the home ever to be disturb ed on account of the Catholic’s duty to rear his off spring in the faith. But, some will say, this is asking the non-Catholic to yield everything; why should not his religion be con sidered; why not, as in some German countries is required by law, let the father rear the boys in his faith, and the mother rear the girls in hers; that would be fair to both. Possibly so; but would it be fair to God? He did not found one church for girls and another for boys, but One Church. The very “fairness” of that suggestion condemns it. A willingness to permit SOME of the children to be reared in another re ligion forfeits the right of the parent to insist on any being reared in his own religion, because he cannot regard his religion as necessary to salvation and be willing tliat some of his children shall go without it.