The following appears in Der Lutheraner V. 63 (1911) No. 21 (October 17th) p. 346
Rome and marriage. A political newspaper, apparently under Roman Catholic influence, wrote not long ago that the Roman Church acts rightly and wisely in favoring early marriages and large families, thus proving itself a promoter of all the virtues that spring from the love of family life. Thus one reads from time to time that Roman priests condemn so-called racial suicide, and last year one of their bishops spoke out strongly against it at the Eucharistic Congress in Montreal. But none of this can erase the fact that Rome is the greatest enemy of God-ordained marriage and Christian family life. For to this day, she continues to describe the unmarried state as a higher, more perfect state, year in, year out compelling thousands of men and women in monasteries to live unmarried lives, and forbidding all priests and bishops to marry, contrary to God’s word. Therefore the Lutheran confession in the 23rd article of the Augsburg Confession and elsewhere condemns this anti-Christian error of the papacy, and Luther says the sharp words: “The fountainhead of all fornication and immorality in the papacy is that they condemn marriage, the most holy estate. For all who despise the marriage state must fall into shameful, abominable fornication, even to the point of turning natural use into unnatural use, as St. Paul says in Romans 1:26, because they despise God’s order and creation, that is, woman. For God created woman to be with man, to bear children and keep house. Therefore they take their deserved reward justly, because they despise marriage, and, as St. Paul says, they receive the reward in their own bodies, as it ought and should be, because of their error.” L(udwig). F(ürbringer).
