The Bishop of Ossory has, according to a correspondent of
Tuesday's Times, put up on the door of the Roman Catholic
Cathedral at Kilkenny an episcopal manifesto against mixed marriages which does not read as if the danger of the revival of religions animosity in Ireland were entirely chimerical. "In order more effectually to deter people from entering into these detestable marriages," says the Bishop, "the penalty of excom- munication is hereby attached to that sin, both for the Catholic contracting party as also for the Catholic witnesses to such
marriage,"—i.e., of course if they are entered into without "a dispensation from the Holy See." The contracting of such a marriage is declared a "most grievous mortal sin ;" and both the Catholic who enters into such marriages and the Catholic wit- nesses to it "cannot be absolved by any priest in the diocese of Ossory, unless by the Bishop or by those to whom he grants special faculties." We may be sure that Catholics who confess complicity in cruel boycotting, or even in much graver agrarian crimes, are absolved on profession of penitence without special appeal to the Bishop. But marriage with a pious Protestant is, of course, a far more grievous spiritual offence. Does not this look a little like the recent anticipation of our correspondent, Mr. J. J. Murphy, that the religions war in Ireland may still by
possibility be renewed P
Previous page
