There remains the weltering problem of mixed marriages and the Ne Temere decree.  It is perhaps worth observing that marriages get mixed in other countries as well as in Ireland.  It grieves one that men should differ as to the true religious interpretation of life.  But they do in fact differ, and wherever two human beings, holding strongly to different faiths, fall in love there is tragic material.  But they do in fact fall in love.  The theme recurs, with a thousand reverberations, in the novel literature of England, France, and Germany.  The situation occurs also in Ireland.  But I am bewildered to know in what way it is an argument for or against Home Rule.  Let us appeal once more to colonial experience and practice.  There is a Catholic majority in Canada and an overwhelming Catholic majority in Quebec.  The policy of the Catholic Church towards mixed marriages is precisely the same there as in Ireland.  Does Protestantism demand that the constitutions of the Dominion and the Province respectively shall be withdrawn?  Since no such claim is made we must conclude that the outcry on Orange platforms is designed not to enforce a principle but to awaken all the slumbering fires of prejudice.  The Ne Temere decree introduces no new departure.  Now, as always, the Catholic Church requires simply that her members shall consecrate the supreme adventure of life with the Sacrament of their fathers before the altar of their fathers.  It is strange that the Orangemen, believing as they do that the Pope is anti-Christ, should be so annoyed at finding that the Pope teaches a doctrine different from theirs on the subject of marriage.  The Pope can inflict no spiritual penalties on them since they are outside his flock.  He can inflict no civil penalties on anybody.  There is undoubtedly in the matter of divorce a sharp conflict between Catholic ideas and the practice and opinion of Protestant countries.  That exists, and will continue, under every variation of government.  It is an eternal antinomy.  But whom does it aggrieve?  We Catholics voluntarily abjure the blessings of divorce, but we should never dream of using the civil law to impose our abnegation on those of another belief.  If there is any doubt upon that point it can very easily be removed.  The civil law of marriage can be conserved under one of the “safeguards.”

The truth is that in order to test our tolerance Orangeism proposes to us a series of exercises which are a very delirium of intolerance.  “Sever yourselves,” it says in effect to us, “from all allegiance to that Italian Cardinal.  Consign him, as Portadown does, to hell.  Bait your bishops.  Deride the spiritual authority of your priests.  Then shall we know that you are men and masters of your own consciences.  Elect a Unionist Council in every county, a Unionist Corporation in Dublin, then shall we know that you are brothers.  Disown your dead leaders.  Spit on the grave of Emmet.  Teach your children that every Fenian was a murderer.  Erase from your chronicles the name of Parnell.  Then shall we know that you are loyal.”