Marrying into the Catholic Faith

[teaurn]

Hi Kit,

You don't state when they got married but on the 25th December a decree was issued at Rome that suspended the Bishops power of Dispensation which meant that during the year 1900 permission had to be sought from Rome.

By 1906 Pope Pius X issued the Ne Temere Decree which stated that mixed marriages were only valid if the wedding service was held in a Catholic church and children from the union must be raised in the Catholic faith.

T

[stonechat]

Despite the above I remember hearing that in some families of such marriages boys were to brought up in one faith and girls the other
Sounds bizarre I know

[Elwyn Soutter]

The 1901 & 1911 Irish censuses show individual religions clearly. From that it is not too difficult to find mixed marriage families and equally not too difficult to find some where, as you say, some children were brought up under one religion and some under another. (The sons often following the father and the daughters the mother).

Church authorities can issue all the edicts they like but sometimes human nature quietly goes it's own way and ignores rules that don't suit. Couples may have given certain undertakings at the altar regarding the future religion of their children but if, when it later came to the bit, they decided differently and actually only baptised half their children into that religion, what would actually have happened? Would the church have excommunicated the whole lot? I doubt it. It seems to me that regardless of it's stated position on the matter, in reality, the RC church generally accepted a fait accompli that was somewhat different.


Elwyn