The faith of our fathers - Carmel Apologetics

"472 THE FAITH OF OUR FATHERS.A few years previously, Napoleon appealed toPius VII. to annu.4 the marriage which his brotherJerome had contracted with Miss Patterson of Baltimore. The Pope sent the following reply to theEmperor Your :majesty will understand that uponthe information thus far received by us, it is not in ourpower to pronounce a sentence of nullity. We cannot utter a judgment in opposition to the rules ofthe Church, and we could not, without laying asidethose rules, decree the invalidity of a union which,according to the Word of God, no human power cansunder."Christian wives and mothers, what gratitude youowe to the Catholic Church for the honorableposition you now hold in society If !you are nolonger regarded as the slave, but the equal of yourhusband ;ifyou are no longer the toy of his caprice,and liable to be discarded at any moment, like thewomen of Turkey and the Mormon wives of Utah ;but if you are recognized as the mistress and queen,of your household, you owe your emancipation tothe Church. You are especially indebted for yourliberty to the Popes who rose up in all the majestyof their spiritual power to vindicate the rights ofinjured wives against the lustful tyranny of theirhusbands.How opposite is the conduct of the fathers of thego-called Reformation, who, with the cry of religiousreform on their lips, deformed religion and societyby sanctioning divorce.