Until the publication last year of the Motu Proprio and the Directory by the Episcopal Conference of England and Wales mixed marriages looked very different to different people. It depended where you stood. In fact there can be few states of life which appeared so different according to viewpoint.

If you were an average Roman Catholic priest or bishop brought up in the One True Church with a firm Catholic tradition, they were a major problem. More than half your marriages were mixed and the majority of the non-Catholic partners were merely nominal Christians. One of your primary concerns must have been that the Catholic partner continued to practise his or her faith and the children were brought up as Catholics. The Catholic Church in this country has been the only major Church which has increased in numbers in recent years, and, apart from the Irish immigration, the children of mixed marriages have probably accounted for the largest part of this increase.

If you were an average Anglican priest or bishop brought up in a firm Anglican tradition, mixed marriages with Roman Catholics were a minor, but very sharp, problem. You came across few of them where the Roman Catholic practised his religion, but the ones you did meet showed that ‘One True Church of Christ’ at its most intransigent, intolerant of the conscience of the Anglican partner. You were tempted to be as intolerant in return, leaving the couple as bewildered and unhappy pawns of a different colour trying to make love in the middle of an ecclesiastical game of chess.