mixed marriages...

[Jake Huether]

I'm reading this book by F. Sheed, called "Theology for Beginners". On pg. 60, Sheed mentions breifly, in passing, that the Church doesn't like mixed marriages...

Is this true? And if so, what exactly is meant by "mixed".

Thanks!

[mulls]

i would hope it's not referring to race, but rather being unequally yoked to an unbeliever.

[Thy Geekdom Come]

I'm with Mulls, I would assume that it means being married to someone who is not Catholic. It's not against the laws of the Church, but it is frowned upon.

[Sojourner]

It is true (I'm pretty sure it's in the catechism) and it refers to the marriage of a Catholic to a non-Catholic.

[Dave]

Yep, they're all correct -- a mixed marriage is between a Catholic and a non-Catholic.

[mulls]

[quote name='Raphael' date='Oct 12 2004, 02:09 PM'] I'm with Mulls, I would assume that it means being married to someone who is not Catholic. It's not against the laws of the Church, but it is frowned upon. [/quote]
why isn't it against the law of the Church?

[Dave]

[quote name='mulls' date='Oct 12 2004, 02:29 PM'] why isn't it against the law of the Church? [/quote]
Perhaps the Church realizes there's a possibility that God might want to use the Catholic party as an instrument to help bring the non-Catholic party into the Church.

[toledo_jesus]

[quote name='Dave' date='Oct 12 2004, 02:36 PM'] Perhaps the Church realizes there's a possibility that God might want to use the Catholic party as an instrument to help bring the non-Catholic party into the Church. [/quote]
perhaps so.
From a sociological standpoint, however, it really opens the Church up to diminishing Her numbers.

[Sojourner]

[quote name='toledo_jesus' date='Oct 12 2004, 01:43 PM'] perhaps so.
From a sociological standpoint, however, it really opens the Church up to diminishing Her numbers. [/quote]
How so? I mean, I would think it could open the church up to augmenting her numbers as much as it could to diminishing them. I mean, I know plenty of people who have come into the church because of a significant other.

[popestpiusx]

It is against Church law. That's why you are required to have a sort of dispensation in order to depart from it. This is with good reason. It has disasterous effects both on the spouse, and especially on the children. I've seen the results of this first hand in my own family. It leads to indifferentism.

[Azriel]

It can also work.

There is a reason that dispensations are given.

Az "married 10 years to a non Catholic"

[IcePrincessKRS]

My parents were a "mixed" marriage (haha actually, "mixed" in both senses of the word...). Dad converted when I was quite young... I'm not sure exactly how old I was, I remember him receiving his First Communion, etc., though. Even before he became Catholic he always came to Mass with us as a family.

[popestpiusx]

[quote name='Azriel' date='Oct 12 2004, 03:18 PM'] It can also work.

There is a reason that dispensations are given.

Az "married 10 years to a non Catholic" [/quote]
I didn't say it could not work. I know it can work in some sense. My grandparents have been married for 65 years. My grandfather is Lutheran, grandmother Catholic. What I also know is 7 of their 8 children see no difference between the two now, even though they were raised Catholic, even as "good" Catholics. I also know that after 65 years my grandmother has definitely moved closer to Lutheranism, than my grandfather has to Catholicism.

I know exceptions to this as well, but I know many more whose mixed marriages have been disastrous. Most of them have left the Church for another religion or just stopped practicing anything. Some continue to go to Church but hold heretical beliefs mysteriously similar to those of the non-Catholic spouse.

But as you said, there is a reason dispensations can be granted and I hope you are one of them.

[Lil Red]

[quote name='Azriel' date='Oct 12 2004, 01:18 PM'] It can also work.

There is a reason that dispensations are given.

Az "married 10 years to a non Catholic" [/quote]
i never even knew about this, and i don't think my marriage was granted a dispensation.

[Azriel]

Lil - if you were married in a Catholic Church, then most likely you were given a dispsensation by your Diocese. Its something that your Priest would request.

[Azriel]

[quote name='IcePrincessKRS' date='Oct 12 2004, 02:24 PM'] My parents were a "mixed" marriage (haha actually, "mixed" in both senses of the word...). Dad converted when I was quite young... I'm not sure exactly how old I was, I remember him receiving his First Communion, etc., though. Even before he became Catholic he always came to Mass with us as a family. [/quote]
My Dad and Grandfather both converted. In fact, I think they received their first communion together.

[Lil Red]

[quote name='Azriel' date='Oct 12 2004, 01:38 PM'] Lil - if you were married in a Catholic Church, then most likely you were given a dispsensation by your Diocese. Its something that your Priest would request. [/quote]
but i don't know for sure...and why wouldn't they have told me? i mean, i work at the church?

[Theoketos]

[quote name='Dave' date='Oct 12 2004, 01:28 PM'] Yep, they're all correct -- a mixed marriage is between a Catholic and a non-Catholic. [/quote]
Even more so, there is a distinction between marrying non~Christian and a Christian.

[url="http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xi_enc_31121930_casti-connubii_en.html"]On Marriage, excellent work by Pius XI[/url]
[b]
81. This religious character of marriage, its sublime signification of grace and the union between Christ and the Church, evidently requires that those about to marry should show a holy reverence towards it, and zealously endeavor to make their marriage approach as nearly as possible to the archetype of Christ and the Church. [/b]

[i]82. They, therefore, who rashly and heedlessly contract mixed marriages, from which the maternal love and providence of the Church dissuades her children for very sound reasons, fail conspicuously in this respect, sometimes with danger to their eternal salvation. [/i]This attitude of the Church to mixed marriages appears in many of her documents, all of which are summed up in the Code of Canon Law: "Everywhere and with the greatest strictness the Church forbids marriages between baptized persons, one of whom is a Catholic and the other a member of a schismatical or heretical sect; and if there is, add to this, the danger of the falling away of the Catholic party and the perversion of the children, such a marriage is forbidden also by the divine law."[62] If the Church occasionally on account of circumstances does not refuse to grant a dispensation from these strict laws (provided that the divine law remains intact and the dangers above mentioned are provided against by suitable safeguards), it is unlikely that the Catholic party will not suffer some detriment from such a marriage.

83. Whence it comes about not unfrequently, as experience shows, that deplorable defections from religion occur among the offspring, or at least a headlong descent into that religious indifference which is closely allied to impiety. There is this also to be considered that in these mixed marriages it becomes much more difficult to imitate by a lively conformity of spirit the mystery of which We have spoken, namely that close union between Christ and His Church.

[Azriel]

[quote name='Lil Red' date='Oct 12 2004, 03:02 PM'] but i don't know for sure...and why wouldn't they have told me? i mean, i work at the church? [/quote]
That's odd. They must know that your spouse isn't Catholic. If so, then your Priest wouldn't have married you without the dispensation.

I'd be asking some questions Lil.

[Snarf]

My parents were a mixed-marriage, and they left the Church for about the first decade of marriage. When I was six, however, my little sister, my father and I were baptised and have been practicing Catholics ever since.