Who can wonder that it should have been regarded by Protestants in that diocese as a direct stirring up of bitter religious animosities against them?
Or that, emanating directly as it did from a bishop of the Church, it should be represented as emanating indirectly from the Head of the Church himself at Rome?
"_Kilkenny, April 16th, 1885._ "REV.

DEAR SIR,--May I ask you to read the following circular for the people at each of the Masses on Sunday, 19th April?
"The course to be adopted for the future by the Priest of the Parish to whom notice of a Mixed Marriage is given by the Minister, or the Registrar, is as follows:--he makes the following entry on the book of Parochial announcements, and reads it three consecutive Sundays from the Altar:-- "'The Priests of the Parish have received the following notice of a marriage to be celebrated between a Catholic and a Protestant.

[Here read Registrar's notice in full.] We have now to inform you that the law of the Catholic Church regarding such marriages is: that the Catholic party contracting marriage before a Registrar or other unauthorised person is, by the very fact of so doing, Excommunicated; and the witnesses to such marriage are also Excommunicated.' "I should be very much obliged if, as occasion may require, you would explain the effects of this Excommunication from the Altar.
"You will please take notice that the Registrar or Minister is bound legally to send the notice of marriage referred to above, and also, that in reading it out _in the form, and with the accompanying remarks above_, you incur no legal penalty.
"I feel sure that with your accustomed zeal you will do everything in your power to prevent abuses in regard to the Sacrament of Matrimony, which is great in Christ and the Church, and to induce the faithful to prepare for receiving it by Prayer, by works of Charity, and by approaching the Sacrament of Penance to purify their souls .-- Yours faithfully in Christ, [Image: Cross] A.BROWNRIGG." "MY DEAR BRETHREN,--We have been very much pained to learn, within the past month, that marriages between Catholics and non-Catholics have increased very much in this city of Kilkenny.

Many _evil-disposed_ persons, utterly unmindful of the prohibitions of the Church, and regardless of the dreadful consequences they bring on themselves, have not hesitated to enter into those _unholy matrimonial alliances_ called "Mixed Marriages," which the Catholic Church has always _hated and detested_.

Those misguided Catholics, who do not deserve the name, have not blushed to go, in some instances, before the Protestant Minister, in other instances, before the Public Registrar, to ask them to assist at their marriage with a Protestant.