them. More than fourteen hundred years ago, several Councils, among them those of Elvira, Laodicea, and Chalcedon, forbade Catholics to marry heretics, unless the latter promised to become Catholics.
5. Two special reasons induced and compelled the Catholic Church to come to this decision. In the first place, a union between a Catholic and a Protestant can never be a perfect marriage, can never be what marriage ought to be. For marriage is a sacrament, and ought to be regarded and treated as such. How can this be, when the Protestant considers marriage to be a merely civil contract?
Married people should live in the closest union, the most perfect harmony; they ought to have but one heart and one soul. How can this be, when they hold such widely different opinions in regard to the most sacred and important of all subjects, namely religion?
Moreover, married people ought to help one another on the way to heaven. How can they do this when one takes the road to the right, and the other treads the path which turns to the left? Furthermore, married people ought to give their children a religious education, and they should co-operate in carrying on the good work. Again, I ask, how can they do this, when their views in regard to religion differ so widely?
6. Finally, there is another important
