“MY DEAR BRETHREN,—­We have been very much pained to learn, within the past month, that marriages between Catholics and non-Catholics have increased very much in this city of Kilkenny.  Many evil-disposed persons, utterly unmindful of the prohibitions of the Church, and regardless of the dreadful consequences they bring on themselves, have not hesitated to enter into those unholy matrimonial alliances called “Mixed Marriages,” which the Catholic Church has always hated and detested.  Those misguided Catholics, who do not deserve the name, have not blushed to go, in some instances, before the Protestant Minister, in other instances, before the Public Registrar, to ask them to assist at their marriage with a Protestant.  By contracting marriage in this way, they run a great risk of bringing on themselves and on their children, should they have any, the maledictions of Heaven instead of the blessings of religion.  In order to put a stop to this growing abuse, and to prevent it from spreading like a contagion to other parts of the Diocese, we beg to remind the faithful of certain regulations which, for the future, shall have force in the Diocese of Ossory in reference to the Catholics, who so far forget themselves as to contract such marriages.

“1.  In the first place, any one who contracts a “Mixed Marriage” without a dispensation from the Holy See and before a Protestant Minister or a Registrar is, by the very fact, guilty of a most grievous mortal sin by violating a solemn law of the Church in a most grave matter.

    “2.  The Catholic who assists as witness at such marriage also
    commits a most grievous sin by co-operating in an unlawful act.

“3.  Both the Catholic party contracting the marriage and the Catholic witnesses to it cannot be absolved by any priest in the Diocese of Ossory, unless by the Bishop or by those to whom he grants special faculties.

“4.  In order more effectually to deter people from entering into those detestable marriages, the penalty of Excommunication is hereby attached to that sin both for the Catholic contracting party as also for the Catholic witnesses to such marriage.

“5.  The notice which the Protestant Rector or the Registrar is legally bound in such cases to send to the Parish Priest of the Catholic party, will be read from the Altar for three consecutive Sundays, and thus the crime of the offending party brought out into open light before his or her fellow-parishioners.

“6.  For the rest, we hope the sense of decency and religion of the Catholic people and their Pastors shall be no more hurt by any Catholic entering into those marriages, so full of, misery and evil of every kind for themselves, their children, and society at large.—­Yours faithfully in Christ,

    [Image:  Cross] ABRAHAM, Bishop of Ossory.