The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1904-09-17
MARRIAGES FOR CONVENIENCE.


pies to the divorce court, God is directing
the inquiring Protestant mind to a contem
plation of the Churehs position on mar
rage No well-nformed non-Cathohc will deny
the Churchs claim to be conservator OF
morals, no matter how strenuously he opposes hel
claim to be the true and only church instituted by
Christ. He cannot help it. The Catholic family
is an every day object lesson. On the other hand
so is the divorce court.
Here is a recent illustration, clipped from the
/ daily press of this city:
Less tkan five of married life proved enough
for Bertrand n. Matthews who says his wife, Cemma
Matthews, told him that she merely married him III a
spirit of fun and that had intention at the time
of abiding by the contract. The couple were married
in this city April 2S 1904 the ceremony having been
performed by Mrs Harriet Fontyn, according to the
rites of the Spiritual church.
Whatever faith Bertrand Matthews placed III
the incantatons rites of the Spiritist church"
evidently the woman married by such ceremony"
did not share it with him. Clcmma married Bert
rand, according to the latters testimony, only i'll
spirit of fun. Worse, the woman is a confessed
wanton when she admitted to the husband of that
piebad pagan marriage that Cat the time) she had
intention of abiding by the contract Knowing
this why did the bridegroom seek out this Spiritist
to a woman? So long as the act was entered into
i'll a spirit of fun, as the woman declared. would it
have been less sinful to live III the shameful rela
ton of protector and mistress! Indeed, the latter
condition would have the merit of cheating the
devil and incidentally saving the fee Of the Spirit
ist performer of marriage rites"
The inability to perceive the sacredncss of the
marriage tie is not the least of the causes threaten
ing the foundation of society in this country. Mar
riages for convenience are in evidence every day;
and long such unions can be dissolved by civil
courts upon complaints of desertion that complex
ion of testimony offers a safe and easy road to
another marriage for convenience. Indeed many
divorces are mutually pre-arranged one party pur-
posely deserving" in order that the other might
obtain decree.
While the Catholic is absolvcd from this blot
upon society in common with every other person
DESTROYS of placing morals first in the transactions
of life, he cannot help deploring a condition fast
plunging this nation into vice and immortality more
appalling than those sins which caused the down
fall of pagan Rome. We sec an evidence of effort
to stem this tide of immortality when enlightened |
Protestants compare the methods of Catholics with |
the impotent- energy of ministers of their own
Beliefs SO it is, in anayzing the cause for all this
rottenness i'll society, they find it in the irreligious
education of the youth; and they begin to see !
that the Catholic is right in maintaining that edu-
cation without religion is destructive to good cti-
zenship and that country is just what its citizens
make it.
Until marriage is recognized as a sacrament,
there will be health to sentiment in this country
and divorce and race suicide will be the portion of
Americans That holy matrimony is a sacrament
instituted by Christ is clearly shown by ST. Pauls
words to the Ephesians: "Therefore, as the Church
is subject to Christ, SO also let the wives be to
their husbands in all things. HUSBANDS, love your
wives as Christ also loved the Church and deliv-
cred himself up for it For this cause
shall man leave his father and mother and shall
'leave to his wife and they shall be in one flesh
This IS a great sacrament, but I speak in Christ
and in His Church."