Evening Journal

FATHER LYONS ON
MIXED MARRIAGES
Declares That the Church Looks Upon Such Unions as Unholy

The recently issued letter of Pope Pius X, relative to marriages, is just now receiving no little attention from the Roman Catholic hierarchy in this country.

In this city Vicar-General Lyons, pastor of the Cathedral, is giving a course of instructions anent the new regulations which take effect next Easter Sunday, and which will for all time to come, during the reign of the present Pope at least, govern the marriage ceremony of Roman Catholics.

At the late mass in the Cathedral yesterday, which was celebrated by the Rev. Father McKenna, Father Lyons preached the sermon. After reading the Epistle and Gospel of the Sunday—St. Paul to the Galatians, chapter iv, verses 22 to 32—Father Lyons began his sermon by stating the different aspects under which he had considered marriage, namely, its divine origin, its nature and constitution.

'We find that it's of divine origin,' said the speaker, 'that it's been mutilated by man, but restored by our Divine Lord and elevated into a great and Holy Sacrament. It represents the very life of our Lord in the church, and it was constituted by Christ for men and women so they could glorify God, save their souls and bring up their children in the fear of God.'

Marriage is excellent for some men and women because it is holy, but not for all men and women. But nevertheless it is assailed on all sides, and these are divided by those things that precede the consummation of marriage.

'The common belief is that everybody is free to marry. Strange it is that so great and holy and responsible an institution upon which the welfare of society in church and state depends should be free to all comers, the blind, the lame, the palsied, the leprous, the deaf and the dumb, the consumptive and the lunatic, the criminal and the corrupt, and the idiot. Marriage is open to all. No preparation required. Love at first sight: meeting at a ball or theatre or card party: a pretty face or dress, the color of a person's hair, are sufficient reasons for entering into the holy state of matrimony in these days. These people, so described are free to marry and propagate society.

Man has no right to live as he pleases. The church has the right, and so has God, but man has not, solely because he is dependent upon authority.

To some men marriage is necessary for their salvation; to others it is not. St. Paul would have all men celibates like himself, but allows marriage to all who could not otherwise keep out of hell. And St. Paul was inspired. He knew full well the weakness and perversity of human nature, and was fully confident that the great majority would remain the slaves of passion and worldly interests and only the elite would engage to glorify God with an unselfish and undivided heart and would be heroic enough to immolate themselves to the service of their neighbor for God's sake.'

Father Lyons then took up the new rules on marriage and defended them, basing his premises on philosophical and theological grounds, from which he drew deductions sustaining his defense.

'The church,' he said, 'is opposed to the present day system of marriage because of the haste in which engagements and marriages are made. We only have to look about our own country and see the awful consequences resultant from these marriages made for money and position. These never qualify anyone for the marriage state, nor do they create love. Love is not native to a castle alone, it can be found in a hut, in a stable, and often it is found to a greater extent there than in the higher life. As money cannot create love, since it is founded on selfishness, parents should avoid hurrying their children into unions that bring more dishonor than honor to themselves.

Virtue and religion are the dominant factors in marriage, but strange to say they are considered as unimportant considerations. Mixed marriages are an unholy alliance, and this is why the church has always condemned them; so that all marriages performed otherwise than without the proper dispensation will be, after these rules take effect, invalid. The reason why the church has taken such a radical move in this all-important matter is due solely to the laxity of faith, and perverted and corrupted human nature. However, in the movement inaugurated by the church there is nothing new. It was so from the beginning. God prohibited his people from marrying with those not of the household of faith. One reads this in Genesis and in the Mosaic law, and it was taught by all the old prophets and upheld by them. Who then can deny its divine constitutionality? The reasonableness of the recent law is plain to anyone. The church is bound by its constitution to protect her children: secondly, it is a unity of multiplicity: thirdly, it's an archetype of Christ; fourthly, the church is the bride of Christ: the church and Christ are absolutely one, because Christ lives in the church and the church in Christ. This oneness of union of Christ and the church represents the oneness of the marriage state. We are born of the church because of the election of grace, and as the church is hypostatically united to Christ, and He to the church, and as both are One, so should husband and wife be one.

Again the reasonableness of the law comes from the generation of children, who are brethren of Christ, children of God. How can the unity of multiplicity, and the multiplicity of unity be brought about where there is difference of opinion and discord; one affirming the truth of one thing, and the other denying? There can be no love in two people who are constantly in conflict. The history of the world is such that mixed marriages are the result of untold misery.

'I have never known a woman,' he said, 'who wouldn't enter the marriage state despite all laws and regulations even if the very gates of hell yawned before her.'

The speaker then respectively described the attitudes attending the baptizing of children, the issue of mixed marriages. He said that the father must have his way, and the mother demands her way. Then a bargain is struck. The boys go his way; the girls her way, but generally they go their own way. Since the flood there have been more souls lost to the church through mixed marriages than through any other cause. He declared it would be far better for one to remain single all his and her life than to enter into marriage with a Non-Catholic. Father Lyons said that he believes that there ought to be laws made by the church and State, and the church would have made them long ago if the State had not usurped her rights, an usurpation for which the State is now suffering, rendering null and void all idiotic marriages. He closed by exhorting parents to watch over their children closely, over the company they keep, so that they can live in the church for God and eternity.