# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1959_S208
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

208 RESOLUTIONS — COMMITTEE 4

“The Roman Catholic Church is the one true church. There
is no such thing as equality of religions from the Catholic stand-
point. Therefore, to have offspring reared in another faith is
a catastrophe, since it denies to the persons for whom one has the
greatest love the grace of the sacraments and solaces of Roman
Catholicism in life and death.” — Father John J. Kane, Marriage
and the Family (New York: The Dryden Press, Inc., 1952), p. 152,

Lutherans cannot accept such Roman Catholic teachings as
their doctrine of the church, the adoration of the Virgin Mary and
of the saints, the false Roman Catholic Mass, and the erroneous
Roman Catholic doctrine regarding good works.

On the teachings of marriage. itself, Lutherans and Roman
Catholics differ as to its essence, purpose, and importance. Roman
Catholicism considers celibacy a higher estate than that of mar-
riage.* Lutherans deny this and hold that marriage is an honorable
and God-pleasing estate for all (Heb. 13:4; Apology of the Augs-
burg Confession, Art. XXIII). Roman Catholicism also teaches that
marriage is a sacrament governed by the church, valid for its own
members only if performed by a priest. Lutherans look upon
marriage as an arrangement instituted by God at creation for all
human beings. While Lutherans regard marriage as sacred and
blessed by the Creator, they deny that marriage as such bestows
God’s sanctifying grace ex opere operato, that is, by virtue of an
inherent power. Roman Catholicism, moreover, holds that the
chief purpose of marriage is procreation, but Lutheranism recog-
nizes also mutual helpfulness as one of its primary purposes.

b. Under conditions imposed by modern Roman Canon Law,®
the required premarriage agreement which the non-Catholic party
must sign if the marriage ceremony is to be performed by a priest,
binds the Lutheran party to the promise that all children of the
marriage are to be reared in the Roman Catholic faith and that
no attempt to dissuade the Roman Catholic partner will be made
by the non-Catholic. In fact, the Roman Catholic party must prom-
ise by a signed pledge to do all in his or her power, by means of
word and example, to bring about the conversion of the non-
Catholic spouse to the religious faith of the Roman Catholic

2 Canon 10, Council of Trent, in Creeds of Christendom, ed. Philip
Schaff (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1877).

3 Canon 1012.

4 Mario Colacci, Christian Marriage Today (Minneapolis: Augsburg
Publishing House, 1958), pp. 61, 62.

5 Canon 1013.
6 Canon 1061.