Catholic Herald Reporter
ACCORDING to insistent rumoursin the Vatican, Pope Paul will soon bring some changes to the mixed marriage rulings. They will concern mainly the children of such marriages.
Observers feel that a papal document, a moto proprio, will remove the obligation of a written undertaking from a non-Catholic regarding the religious upbringing of the children. In future the onus would rest with -the Catholic partner.
The mixed marriage question was handed to the Pope by the Vatican Council on the closing day of the third session last November.
Council Fathers, rather than make a hasty decision, voted 1,592 to 427 to ask Pope Paul personally to settle the matter.
In the debate, Archbishop Heenan of Westminster created heated controversy, especially among non-Catholics, by saying that only rarely was the nonCatholic partner to a mixed marriage a "really active" member of any religious community.
But he also added a spirited plea for the Catholic Church to show herself as "a real mother not only to the Catholic but e non-Catholic as well". In man places, ceremonies for a mixe marriage were so stripped of solemnity and joy" that they were more suited to a funeral than a wedding. There had been no blessing of the ring, no candles or flowers and—"what used to make the bride burst into tears" —no music.
It is perfectly clear," Archbishop Heenan said, "that if the Church grants a dispensation she should do so graciously, magnanimously and in an open-handed way."