Marriages
p. 27 · Read in the full issue
Interdict on USA Army Marriages
Prom Our Own Correspondent
Noumea, July 5.
IN an announcement published here in the Catholic press Monseigneur Edouard Bresson, Vicar Apostolic of New Caledonia, formally pronounces against the contraction of wartime mar riages between Caledonian girls and members of the American forces.
The three reasons he gives are the difficulty in obtaining exact information as to the baptism and freedom to con tract marriage of prospective bride grooms: the fear of the break-up of unions of this nature during periods of separation which war makes inevitable and which might be indefinitely pro longed; and the lack of guarantee of entry into the United States of the foreign wife of an American Serviceman.
The Bishop therefore formally forbids his missionaries in the colony to cele brate weddings of this nature without his special authorisation and the produc tion of certificates of baptism and free dom to contract marriage. He adds that such authorisation will only be given “in absolutely exceptional circumstances.”
The Bishop’s interdict follows a recent announcement of the same general pur ports by the US island military command.