Try this... it's vb.net managed code but you get the idea.
Public Function GetTemplateXMLFileDOM() As IXMLDOMDocument3
Dim TemplateDOM As IXMLDOMDocument3
TemplateDOM = prXDoc.CreateDOM()
TemplateDOM.async = False
TemplateDOM.validateOnParse = False
TemplateDOM.load(''template.xml'')
Dim ...