3.
Our judgment in this matter is
sufficiently clear in the Decretal Rescript published by our authority November
4, 1741, and printed in volume I of Bullarii Nostri,
no. 34, sect. 3, as follows: "In the first place his Holiness grieves very
much that some Catholics today are demented in their base love. They no longer
shrink from these detestable marriages which the Church has always condemned
and forbidden. He praises those bishops who strive to restrain Catholics from
marrying heretics by imposing more severe penalties". Also "He
seriously admonishes all bishops and Vicars Apostolic, parish priests,
missionaries, and other faithful ministers in Holland and Belgium to frighten
away Catholics of both sexes from entering upon such marriages to the destruction
of their souls, and to impede these same marriages by every good means, and to
strive effectively to prevent them". Further along, concerning a marriage
already contracted by a Catholic party with a heretical partner, we read:
"The Catholic spouse, whether a man or a woman, ought to resolve to do
penance for the grave crime committed, to beg God for pardon, and to strive to
bring back to the Catholic Church the spouse wandering from the true faith and
so to win his soul; this could obtain remission for the crime committed
because, as has already been said, he will be forever bound by the chain of
that marriage".
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