NO PRECEDENT.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 787, 9 April 1910, Page 9

NO PRECEDENT.

' AN' ORDINATION INCIDENT. ; '; i The' "Church Times"... statesY : Oar correspondent in Australia sends us.an .account of, an incident at Adelaide.: which reveals tho extraordinary nature--of tho relations "between the CWch hi Australia and the Church of Engalnd., . The Bishop of Adelaide was .on the' point of ordaining two deacons under. ■ the canonical age of twentv-three. He was informed by his Chancellor that, : for [tins purpose, he-must obtain, *"' faculty from the ATchbisßop' of .Canter--' 'biiry or the Archbishop of Armagh,,' 'untiePa'ii Act of 1804. *Wtheit cable*' to the former, and received'a reply tor' the effect that, his Grace- could'grant a.faculty, having" precedent'" for.so doing." The ordination of the' l two candidates was, in consequence,! postponed.. What tho Archbishop ofiCanterbury meant' by the statement'that ho liad.no precedent we do'not know. Is it'possible that the faculty,,' for which provision is expressly made' in tho Ordinal, has'never been issued? Or did his' Grace mean that it had never. been issued in the case of amapplicant .for Australia? There was,,' however, for the Bishop of Adelaide a, precedent; nearer home. A former': Archbishop'of Sydney once granted. theJ . dispensation, and his lordship mightC have asked the acting Primate of Australia to grant.one in.this case. .'lf, air some appear to think, this would have, involved serious consequences from 'the, Privy Council,'., perhaps the Bishop o£ Adelaide 'hesitated to precipitate' them. ' However that may be, it. is high time-., for the Australian Church to assert its* freedom..- Here is a task, to which the', new Primate might well address him-' self; for it is absurd that an apparently,! organised 1 ' and independent Churebi should .be bound by legal ties to Can-'' terbiiry and Armach.'. .•; .