Note 35 — II.
Reading edition
A curious instance of the immoral result of holding marriage sacramental, and indissoluble under all circumstances, comes within my personal experience while I am correcting these pages for the press, Oct. 11, 1861.
A young Catholic girl was divorced some years ago, immediately after marriage, on account of the bad conduct of her husband. She was received into the family of a brother-in-law, in every way highly respectable. For the last two years, she has been courted by an officer in the navy of the United States; but nowhere in New England could a Catholic priest be found willing to marry them. The church still holds her responsible to her first vows. The officer honestly desired to marry her; but the natural result of her ignorance and perplexity followed. Expecting to become a mother, and rejected by her family, she came to me for advice. As the officer is a Protestant, I recommended that they should be married by a minister of that faith. She again consulted her priest, and was told that it was less sinful for her to remain in her present relation to her lover than to receive a sacrament from unholy hands; the priest ignoring utterly the legal protection and maintenance which she might thus receive.