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Protestant Warnings. Such ecumenical experiments may well prove one way to end a continuing source of Catholic-Protestant conflict. Catholic canon law requires that the children of all mixed marriages be brought up as Catholics and that the Catholic partner work "prudently" for the conversion of his spouse. It does not even recognize the validity of any mixed marriage that is not celebrated before a priest. Despite such off-putting rules, roughly one-fourth of all Catholic marriages in the U.S. and Germany involve a non-Catholic partner—and there are thousands of other Catholics who, breaking canon law, marry Protestants before ministers. Many Protestant leaders, including the Church of Scotland Assembly and Germany's Evangelical Church hierarchy have warned against mixed marriages so long as the strict Catholic rules prevail. A number of progressive Catholic bishops have asked Rome to change the rules on mixed marriages, and the fourth session of the Vatican Council will probably outline the norms to be allowed a pontifical commission of cardinals that is now revising canon law, last codified in 1918. The progressives argue that the marriage rules involve ecclesiastical rather than divine law, and that the sacrament is actually administered by the couple rather than the priest, who is merely an official witness. Thus there is no Catholic doctrinal bar against Catholics' marrying Protestants before non-Catholic clergy.