Updated Catholic Marriage program

Accord , the Irish Catholic Church's marriage agency, has just published its "updated programme "  following a collaboration involving marriage facilitators, educators ,as well as clergy from all over Ireland.

It was presented by Bishp Nulty, president of Accord.

I was expecting in this Pope Francis era that there would indeed be an " update " on the traditional  catholic  canonical requirements surrounding so called ' mixed marriages".

How Accord  can call  its  new  programme " updated " flies in the face of  reality when it merely repeats verbatim an   80 year old Catholic Canon Law  which  requires a Catholic entering a  mixed marriage   " to declare he or she is prepared to remove dangers from defecting from the faith and to make a sincere promise to do all in his or her power so that all offspring are  baptized and brought up in the Catholic Church ".

( Canon 1125  )

According to this canon  law  the local catholic bishop  can disallow such a marriage to take place in his diocese  "unless the above conditions are fulfilled".

Why the local Bishop should still be the arbiter of whether two baptised Christians in a loving relationship can marry each other in church unless these "promises ' are given is incredible in this day and age.

In fact this   " update " follows on in both the spirit and words of the infamous "Ne Temere Decree " issued by Pope Pius Tenth in 1907 , the terms of which were upheld by the Irish Supreme Court in 1951,  and which caused much scandal and offence to   Christians of the Reformed tradition both in the north and south of Ireland.

Almost 120 years later this requirement still must be addressed by the officiating Catholic priest during the public prenuptial inquiry when he asks for a positive response from the Catholic partner to his question:

" Do you promise to do what you can to have all the children baptised and brought up in the Catholic Faith ".

It is a  unjust obligation to place such an onerous burden on the  conscience of the Catholic in a mixed marriage to have to do all in their  "power " to baptize and rear "offspring " in the Catholic Church  and an  insult to the non catholic partner's

 right and duty  to follow their own particular  conscientious beliefs.

A few weeks ago there was much positive ecumenical  contact between Christians   to promote Christian unity  in Rome .

But  how can there ever be any unity between the Christian Churches while one , the Catholic tradition   still insists that it alone has all the 'truth ' and that the consciences  of Christians from the reformation tradition can be treated with contempt  when it comes to 'mixed marriages'.



Brendan Butler