Vatican urges Catholics not to marry Muslims

The Vatican takes a stand on an important issue:

The New York Times
May 15, 2004

ROME -- In an official church document released Friday, Vatican officials discouraged marriage between Catholics and Muslims -- especially Catholic women and Muslim men.

When "a Catholic woman and a Muslim wish to marry," the document says, "bitter experience teaches us that a particularly careful and in-depth preparation is called for."

Complete story

Vatican's Muslim marriage warning
(Filed: 15/05/2004)

The Vatican warned Roman Catholic women yesterday to think hard before marrying a Muslim, while urging Muslims to show more respect for human rights, gender equality and democracy.

Calling women "the least protected member of the Muslim family", it spoke of the "bitter experience" western Catholics had with Muslim husbands, especially if they married outside the Islamic world and later moved to the man's country of origin.

Link (Telegraph)

The position of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese on Interreligious marriage, an excerpt:

Interreligious Marriages

Conversely, the Orthodox Church continues to hold to a more jaundiced view of interreligious marriage. It believes that the differences between both partners’ belief systems preclude individual, couple and family religious and spiritual development. As a result, it continues to discourage its faithful from entering interreligious marriages. Orthodox Christians who decide to enter an interreligious marriage (a) will be unable to wed in the Orthodox Church, and (b) lose their sacramental privileges.

In light of the growing numbers of interreligious marriages that Orthodox faithful are entering, some Orthodox theologians have called for a reexamination of the Church's position regarding this issue. To date, nothing substantive has been done to address this subject. However, if the numbers of interreligious marriages continue to grow, I suspect this issue will command more of the Church's attention in the future.