Decree on marriages criticised by bishop

A CATHOLIC bishop has described the church's Ne Temere ruling on mixed marriages as "contrary to the spirit of Christian generosity and love".

In an article in the current issue of The Furrow, the Bishop of Killaloe, Dr Willie Walsh, said that many in the church "would want to apologise to, and ask forgiveness from, our non-Roman brethren" for the pain caused by the decree.

"If one is apportioning blame for the hurt and pain inflicted, I believe that the principal fault was on our side", Dr Walsh wrote. "To our eyes today, the Roman Catholic Ne Temere decree was indeed contrary to the spirit of Christian generosity and love."

It had been "a long journey from the sadness and isolation forced on many a young couple who wanted to share their life and love in marriage, but who belonged to different Christian denominations, to the joyfulness of today's inter-church marriages witnessed by ministers of both denominations".

In the article, "Ecumenism: A Journey Halted?", he recalled other "hurts" inflicted by the church on non-Catholics through an episode involving his own father.

During the 1920s, near Roscrea, Co Tipperary, a group of Catholic farmers, including his father, had sought to buy a firm. A Protestant neighbour interested in buying the same farm had been stopped from doing so by intimidatory threats to his home and property". He recalled how, within a few years, the same Protestant farmer, Bob Lewis, "was warm friends with all his neighbours, including his former intimidators".

When Mr Lewis died in 1941 Dr Walsh's father had attended his funeral "without the approval of his church". He thanked God for his father's "courage in refusing to believe that it could be wrong to join in prayer with his fellow Christians to pray for the repose of a soul of a neighbour, especially a neighbour whom he had wronged in the past and who had forgiven him".

This was a story from a time "before we learned how to pronounce ecumenism", he said. "It has been a long journey from there to here, but there has been progress. There is a long journey still to be travelled.

Dr Walsh felt that while ecumenical progress at a human relationship level had continued apace, at theological level it appeared to have gradually ground to a halt over recent years.

In that context, he regretted another "hurt". Last year, on the centenary of Apostolicae Curae, Pope Leo XIII's refusal to recognise the validity of Anglican orders, no initiative had been taken (by the Vatican) "in regard to this matter, which has been the cause of much hurt to our Anglican friends".

It was to be hoped that further movement "might gradually make that painful question of validity or non-validity no longer relevant", he said.

On ecumenism generally, he believed there was a feeling among most of us that we have not been making progress in recent years.