Source
Terrible figures
The ecclesiastical prohibition of mixed marriages is so
obviously made clear and substantiated by the statistics that it
almost requires presumptuous confidence to enter into a mixed
marriage anyway.
Mixed marriages
in the Reich.
Between 1923 and 1927, a total of 291,481
mixed marriages took place in the German Reich (including the Saar
region). For every 100 Catholics who married, an average of 18.57
entered into a mixed marriage in this five-year period. Of the
291,481 mixed marriages, 180,118, i.e. 61.79 percent, did not
marry in church. This is practically equivalent to 180,118
Catholics leaving the Church. However, the main victims of mixed
marriages are the 195,911 children who were deprived of baptismal
grace in the aforementioned 5-year period through the fault of the
Catholic parent. We lost 376,029 souls in marriage and baptism
losses in the 5 years, i.e. an average of 75,000 souls per
year.
Mixed marriages in the
diaspora.
Our diaspora communities are proportionally
the most afflicted and thinned out by intermarriage. Fr. Krose SJ.
gave a statistical description of church life in the diaspora in
contrast to the Catholic homeland for the year 1926 in the
priestly yearbook of the Boniface Association [Bonifatiusverein]
(1929). In the diaspora, more than half of all marrying Catholics,
namely 54.7 percent, entered into a mixed marriage, compared with
only 7.1 percent in Catholic areas. 70.3 percent of mixed
marriages in the diaspora did not include a church wedding,
compared with 49.6 percent in the hinterland. Only 42.6 percent of
mixed-race children in the diaspora are baptized, compared with
59.5 percent in the Catholic
region.
Do mixed marriages
solemnized in the Church succeed?
Statistical
observations in the province of Saxony in the prewar years showed
that 97 percent of the mixed marriages that were solemnized in the
Church had their children baptized Catholic. The situation was
worse for the Catholic upbringing of these children of mixed
marriages. The curse of mixed marriages comes upon the children,
despite the otherwise good will of all parties. They are
increasingly lost to the Church in the following generations,
namely 25 percent of the first generation, 50 percent of the
second generation and 82 percent of the third generation of
children of Catholic mixed marriages. In the fourth generation,
hardly any significant Catholic part remains. This dilutes the
Catholic blood in mixed marriages.
The divorce rate of mixed
marriages.
The inner impossibility of mixed marriages is
revealed in the high divorce rate. On average, for every 1000
existing marriages in Prussia between 1905 and 1913, there were
0.5 divorces in purely Catholic marriages, 1.5 divorces in purely
Protestant marriages and 3.4 divorces in mixed marriages. This
means that mixed marriages were almost seven times more likely to
end in divorce than purely Catholic couples. In Berlin, 942
Catholic marriages were divorced in 1928. Of these 942 dissolved
marriages, 243 were purely Catholic and 699 were mixed. The
unnatural nature of mixed marriages leads to an external
catastrophe. Mixed marriages lack a firm foundation, an intimate
community. Moreover, Protestants do not recognize the
indissolubility of marriage. If they divorce, the Catholic spouse
remains bound. A mixed marriage is and remains a mixed marriage, a
misfortune for the spouses and the children. The Church condemns
mixed marriages not only in the protection of her rights, but even
more in the faithful care for the faith and the happiness of her
children. More pagans than Christians grow out of mixed marriages.
That is why even devout Protestants warn against it. A well-known
Protestant theologian says: “Consciously Protestant Christians and
convinced Catholics will hardly enter into a mixed marriage.
Strong religious personalities are more likely to renounce
marriage than religious communion in marriage. No church that
believes itself to be in possession of eternal truth can remain
indifferent to the proliferation of mixed marriages and the
alienation of offspring. No one will deny the churches the right
or the duty to influence their members to refrain from mixed
marriages.”
(From the “Bonifatiusblatt”, 1931, issue 3.)
Source of original German text: Wittener Volkszeitung, 13. Juni 1931, p. 10. Available online at: https://www.deutsche-digitale-bibliothek.de/newspaper/item/P4BVP7H65XRFQRIFMGF5YUJQVNME765U?issuepage=10