Cardinal McCloskey’s Pastoral Letter
CARDINAL MCCLOSKEY, of New York, has issued a pastoral letter, in which he urges the bishops and priests to take special pains to prevent people from rushing into hasty and ill-assorted marriages, to insist on publication of the banns before marriage, and in no case to marry a Catholic to a Protestant except under circumstances so peculiar as to justify the exception. And a Catholic marrying a Protestant without permit, or consenting to a marriage service by other than a Catholic priest, shall be excommunicated. He condemns Godless schools, and urges the Catholics to found schools of their own in every case where they can do so, until such time as the people will consent to a division of the school fund. He condemns all secret societies, urges the improvement of Catholic literature to take the place of the depraving literature of our times, and calls on the Catholic authorities to be more rigid in their enforcement of discipline. It is hinted by the Protestant religious press that the letter was written more for effect at Rome than for any expectation in America; but there is more to be expected in that direction in America than most Protestants seem to be aware of.