Author: Msgr.Willie Nazareth
Publication: The Examiner
Date: May 22, 2004
URL: http://the-examiner.org/oldissue1/articles.asp?serial=2
[Note from Hindu Vivek Kendra:
This instruction makes it clear once again that the Roman Catholic Church
believes only in a one-way flow. While they want the children of the mixed-faith
marriages to be Christians, they object to them being Hindu.]
Introduction: Disparity of cult
and mixed marriages are fraught with dangers and pitfalls
In a society where people of various
faiths live and work side by side, it is only natural that such association
should lead to strong and enduring friendships between members of the complementary
sex belonging to different faiths. When these friendships blossom into
love, young people find themselves running into difficulties that they
had not foreseen. The romance and rapture of love begin to yield to headaches
and heartaches they never dreamt of and they are forced to open their eyes
to the stern realities of life.
The Church has always expressed
pastoral concern about the marriages of Catholics with those who do not
share the faith of the Church in pursuance of her duty. Pope Paul VI, in
his motu proprio, Matrimonia mixta, of March 31, 1970, observes that the
basis for this concern are the many difficulties inherent in a mixed marriage
since a certain division is introduced into the living cell of the Church,
as the Christian family is rightly called. In the family itself the fulfillment
of the gospel teachings is more difficult because of the diversities in
matters of religion, especially with regard to those matters which concern
Christian worship and the education of the children. There is often a difference
of opinion on the sacramental nature of matrimony, on the special significance
of marriage celebrated within the Church, on the interpretation of certain
moral principles pertaining to marriage and the family, on the extent to
which obedience is due to the Catholic Church, and on the competence that
belongs to ecclesiastical authority.
In other words, the couple is unable
to share their experience in an area of life, which is most far reaching
and important. The essential happiness of marriage lies in shared companionship.
The more completely a couple can share their joys, values and experience,
the happier they are. In the whole circumference of their marital life
there is no segment which contains such precious values as that which comprises
their spiritual aspirations, hopes and joys.
There is also the problem of adjustment
in mixed marriages, which becomes specially difficult in disparate marriages
because there is a big difference in the upbringing, the eating habits
and the social customs of the two partners in marriage.
For these reasons the Church, conscious
of her duty, discourages the contracting of mixed marriages since she is
very keen that Catholics be able to attain perfect union of mind and full
communion of life in matrimony. However, since contracting marriage and
begetting children is one of the most basic of human rights, the Church,
by her laws, which clearly show her pastoral concern, makes arrangements
that on the one hand the principles of divine law be scrupulously observed
and that on the other hand the said right to contract marriage be respected.
Accordingly, the Church prepares for marriage those who intend to contract
a mixed marriage by educating them so as to enable them to undertake their
duties with a sense of responsibility and to perform their obligations
as members of the Church.
The faithful must therefore be reminded
that the Catholic party to a marriage has the duty of preserving his/her
own faith, nor is it ever permitted to expose oneself to a proximate danger
of losing it. Furthermore, the Catholic partner in a mixed marriage is
obliged not only to remain steadfast in the faith, but also, as far as
possible, to see that the children be baptised and brought up in the same
faith and receive all those aids to eternal salvation which the Catholic
Church provides for the children under her care.
Finally one cannot lose sight of
the fact that children are the greatest victims of such unions. The upbringing
of children born of mixed marriage is considered by many sociologists to
be the most serious of all causes of friction. It is generally irritating
to a parent to see his child brought up in a faith alien to his own. While
the non-Catholic partner may outwardly conform to the promises made in
this regard, he often simmers underneath and looks with lack of enthusiasm
and even with uneasiness at the associations formed by the child through
religious contacts.
(Msgr. Willie Nazareth is Episcopal
Vicar (for Marriages), Archdiocese of Bombay)
