Part 2 - Between Two Worlds

Children raised in a mixed marriage had to negotiate a delicate balancing act. Until 1966, the Catholic Church required both parties to pledge in writing that all children would be raised Catholic. Some compromised by raising the boys Protestant and the girls Catholic. Some Protestant parents refused to comply; others were assiduous in nurturing their children's Catholic faith, even after the death of the Catholic parent. Some children were secretly baptised and raised in one parent's faith unbeknownst to the other - eventually a source of enormous family conflict. In a society polarised between the two main religions, children of mixed marriages were torn by divided loyalties.