Mixed Marriage Rules: An Ecumenical Flaw

High-level ecumenical meetings come and go, but for the membership, mixed marriage remains the stickiest practical problem of a divided Christendom. With the arrival of the marrying season, the World Council of Churches plan to include a paper on this flaw in the ecumenical ointment in its upcoming Study Encounter volume.

The paper was the basic resource for a World Council team that discussed marriage problems with Roman Catholic representatives at a four-day meeting near Rome last month. The WCC paper expresses disappointment that the Vatican mixed-marriage decree a year ago merely reinforces old requirements, rather than applying the spirit of Vatican II’s Decree on Ecumenism. Because Rome can’t quite recognize the “separated brethren,” a Protestant-Catholic marriage in a Protestant church is invalid, and children of a mixed marriage must be raised as Catholics. These nettlesome rules are not only under study in the WCC, but in the negotiations between Roman Catholics and the National Council of Churches.

Just before the meeting, the Vatican eased up considerably on Eastern Orthodox marriages. Applying rules Vatican II made for Eastern Rite Catholics to Orthodoxy, local Roman Catholic bishops have wide discretion in freeing the Catholic partner from canonical requirements so the wedding can be held in an Orthodox church.

This liberalization went into effect on Easter Eve, and a week later an even more revolutionary step was planned. The Vatican gave permission for a Catholic girl to be married in a Catholic church by the groom’s father, United Church of Christ clergyman Alden A. Read, a retired Navy chaplain now assigned to a prison at Las Padres, California.

Msgr. William Baum, Catholic ecumenical director, says it’s the first dispensation like this from the Vatican that he knows of. Father George Crespin, who handles marriage problems in the Oakland Diocese, said the Vatican provided “no explanation,” so “it is difficult to generalize from this case.” Last year’s mixed-marriage decree said that if difficulties arise, the local bishop should refer the case to Rome. Although John Read and Marie Immekeppel succeeded this way, Crespin doubts that “this general permission will be extended to include Protestant churches in the near future, but perhaps there will be a bit more leniency in individual cases.”

The even more nagging problem of religious instruction for children is not at issue. The groom has agreed that they will be raised as Catholics. The WCC suggests that Rome agree to make parents promise merely “to bring up their offsprings as Christians” (see below).

In response to Rome’s new leniency toward Orthodoxy, Archbishop Iakovos, Orthodox primate of North and South America, said he expects Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras to issue a reciprocal statement, probably sometime in April. In practice, this would mean Catholicism and Orthodoxy are closer in this matter than the Orthodox and Protestants, who are both members of the WCC. Current Orthodox practice is to recognize Roman Catholic marriages if the couple converts to the Orthodox faith. But Protestant marriages are usually reconsecrated.

The WCC paper suggests that all branches of Christendom should be as flexible on marriage as most are on baptism. Despite such notable cases of rebaptism as that of Luci Baines Johnson, any form of baptism in the name of the Trinity is normally recognized by both Catholics and Orthodox.

Oakland’s Father Crespin points out that ecumenical flexibility may be possible because, strictly speaking, Catholic teaching is that the couple performs the marriage and the priest is “merely an official canonical witness.” The witness at the Read wedding was to be Father John Ritzius, director of the Newman Center at the Berkeley campus of the University of California, where the couple went to school and met.

Father Robert A. Graham, writing for Religious News Service, raises the possibility that the world synod of Catholic bishops this September might discuss mixed marriages. Graham says opinion among both authorities and experts in Rome favors “general discontinuance of any formal and explicit prior pledge on the part of the non-Catholic party in regard to the Catholic upbringing of children.” This would give way to instruction of the Catholic spouse on his responsibility to raise the children as Catholics, with more emphasis on family unity and the conscience of the non-Catholic spouse.

Graham says German and British bishops have been reluctant to scrap the premarital pledge, while U. S. prelates apparently have no strong feelings one way or the other.

Besides the problem of choosing the clergyman and the church for the ceremony, a mixed marriage usually raises problems of family diplomacy also. Despite the ecumenical thaw in this area, conservatism hangs on. Just last month, Our Sunday Visitor columnist Father Winfrid Herbst offered a tract that teaches that if a Catholic circumvents church law and marries a Protestant in a Protestant church, a Roman Catholic should not attend or take any part in the service and should not even send a gift or a congratulatory note. And social contacts after the marriage “should be avoided by Catholics, or at least reduced to a minimum.”

Whether because of the ecumenical climate or the increasing social integration of immigrant ethnic groups, mixed marriages are becoming more frequent in America. The cruel fact is that, as with other religious regulations, the problems fall hardest on the most devout. The tensions are not great for the nominal Protestant, who is normally less concerned about becoming a Roman Catholic himself, or at least fulfilling church requirements for the wedding and for the training of children. And the nominal Roman Catholic would be less worried about leaving the church, and its mixed marriage rules, behind.

How About The Children?

A World Council of Churches study document on mixed marriage (story above) advocates that “religious education of the children must as far as possible be regarded as a common task.” Especially in the early years, children “must be instructed in one church. They ought not to be presented with the disagreements of various traditions.” But the parent from the other church “should contribute to the establishment of faith” and lay a foundation for “confrontation with other confessions.”

Also, the couple must find a form of common family worship. One possibility is joint Bible study. “When the couple has decided on one church, the children will attend the public worship services of this church.” Both parents should be present on major occasions such as confirmation, special feast days, first communion, or communion.

Personalia

A Presbyterian educator in New Zealand fanned the flames of a theological controversy by last month publicly denying the immortality of the human soul. Principal Lloyd Geering had been under fire for denying the historicity of the resurrection stories (see March 31 issue, p. 42). His latest denial brought demands for his resignation.

Dr. Lloyd J. Averill, vice-president of Kalamazoo College, has been named president of the Council of Protestant Colleges and Universities, an organization of 239 church-related institutions. He succeeds Dr. James M. Godard, who resigned to direct an educational research project.

Dr. John W. Turnbull was named associate director of the Washington office of the National Council of Churches. Ordained in the Congregational ministry, Turnbull became an Episcopal clergyman in 1955. Until recently he taught Christian ethics at Episcopal Theological Seminary of the Southwest.

The theologian’s real value to God is determined by how he applies his doctrinal expertise to soul-winning. So says Dr. Andrew D. MacRae of Glasgow, general secretary of the Baptist Union of Scotland. He told Baptist Theological Seminary students in Rüschlikon, Switzerland, that “more has been owed to Christians by society for their evangelism than for any other area of Christian activity.”

Dr. A. J. Glaze was inaugurated president of the International Baptist Seminary in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Glaze, a native of Mississippi, holds the B.D. and Th.D. degrees from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville.

Dr. C. Eric Lincoln was appointed professor of sociology of religion at Union Theological Seminary, New York. Lincoln, an ordained Methodist minister, is the first Negro to hold a full professorship at Union. He is author of the authoritative Black Muslims in America.

‘The Judas Tree’

Four pallbearers bore a black-draped bier to a huge, steeply raked white cross. Excruciating, dissonant music (eerie strings and sizzling cymbals) filled the air. “I’m scared, Daddy,” piped a four-year-old.

Thus began the American premiere of The Judas Tree during Holy Week at Washington, D. C., Cathedral (Episcopal). The stark, brutal drama was written by Thomas Blackburn with music by Peter Dickinson. It was first performed in Liverpool Cathedral, England, last year.

Dickinson’s startling musical score has the orchestra alternately in whispers and snarls, with abstract mood sounds from the strings, brass, percussion, piano, and organ. The narrator is a tenor soloist. A chorus, mostly homophonic, provides poetic counterpoint for the spoken roles of Judas Iscariot, Pontius Pilate, a Dominican monk, Simon Peter, and a Nazi commandant.

The drama’s theme is curious. Blackburn’s Judas is a necessary contributor to the ultimate good of the Crucifixion; therefore, his role in the passion should not be eternally damned. A monk provides the church’s rites for the dying to help Judas move from his 2,000 years of withdrawal-by-guilt into eternity—a merciful “birth unto death.”

Judas is made a symbol of universal evil through a replaying of the betrayal in a Nazi setting. The experience of crucifixion as the power of expiation within and for every man is shown as Judas’s “birth unto death” through identification with the Crucifixion. “It is finished!” cries Judas at the end, arms outstretched, while the organ thunders and a spotlight marks a huge crucifix over the crossing. The Judas Tree is a forceful drama with an impressive score. It is beautifully written and can be powerfully staged. Its theology gives pause.

JOAN KERNS

Miscellany

An interdenominational West African Congress on Evangelism is being called for July, 1968, to implement the findings of last year’s World Congress on Evangelism in Berlin and the Congress on the Church’s Worldwide Mission in Wheaton, Illinois. It will be sponsored jointly by the Nigerian Evangelical Fellowship and the African evangelism-indepth effort known as “New Life for All.”

The National Lutheran Campus Ministry is taking steps to end its financial support to chairs of religion at four tax-supported universities: Iowa, North Dakota, Kansas, and Montana. Chairs of religion at Texas and UCLA, currently supported by the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, also are expected to lose the aid.

Ministers and scholars of the Churches of Christ are preparing their first commentary on the New Testament. The first of the nineteen volumes of The Living Word Commentary will appear in the fall. Dr. Everett Ferguson, associate professor of Bible at Abilene Christian College, is the editor. The R. B. Sweet Company, of Austin, Texas, is the publisher.

Mother Madeleine, superior of two Benedictine nuns who teach in the public schools of Boerne, Texas, said they will not be back next year. With that word, a citizens’ group, formed to protest the presence of nuns in the schools wearing religious habits, announced it had disbanded. The disposition of a lawsuit filed by the group was not immediately clear.

The Rev. Clarence (Kelly) Walberg, Los Angeles area radio preacher, was given a three-year suspended sentence and a $1,000 fine for issuing promissory notes without a state permit. He had raised $500,000 to convert a seedy beachfront hotel into a youth evangelism center.

Metropolitan Nikodim, external affairs director for the Russian Orthodox Church, is visiting the United States this month as a guest of the Church of the Brethren. The Christian Churches (Disciples) have invited the Rev. Ilia Orlov of Moscow’s Baptist Church to visit next month.

Police in Durango, Mexico, charged two suspects with robbing and strangling Roman Catholic Bishop Jose de la Soledad Torres y Castaneda.

At this summer’s convention the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod will again discuss whether to join the Lutheran World Federation. Memorials both for and against have come from local conferences. The Commission on Theology and Church Relations will announce its recommendation on the LWF question next month.

Deaths

ROBERT M. SKINNER, 64, vice-president of Princeton Theological Seminary; in Westfield, New Jersey.

HENRY H. BAGGER, 75, president emeritus of Philadelphia Lutheran Seminary; in Philadelphia.

HOWARD G. JOHNSHOY, 48, academic dean at Gustavus Adolphus College (Lutheran) in Minnesota; in a plane crash with seven other educators surveying South Viet Nam’s schools.

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