MIXED MARRIAGES.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1231, 13 September 1911, Page 3

MIXED MARRIAGES.

NE TEMERE DECREE. OVERTURE TO THE GENERAL' ASSEMBLY. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) , Christchurch, September 12. At the session of the Christchurch Presbytery this morning tho Rev. R. Wood presented an overturn regarding tho No Tcmero decree for submission to tho General Assembly. Tho overture having been framed by him, ho withdrew his motion for the setting up of a committee to frame such an overture, and gave notice of this overture for discussion at next mcetnig of tho Fresbytcry:— "It is hereby overtured by the Presbytery of Christchurch to tho General Assembly of tho Presbyterian Church indicted to meet at Dunediu on November 8, 1911. "(1) That whereas tho history of proReformation times shows that grave scandals and serious social evils arose from tho *,ction of the authorities of the Eomau Catholic Church in framing unscriptural regulations concerning marriage, these evils being so clamant in Scotland that the Book of Discipline ot 1560 states that the Roman Church had so contemned and weakened marriage- 'that;the persons could never be assured of continuance if the bishops and prelates should list to dissolvo the same/ (Sec 'Reformation,' by John Knox, edited by Lennox, p. 411.) "(2) And whereas the Council of Trent in its twenty-fourth session in 1563, instead of reforming such abuses, passed an elaborate code of legislation intended to apply to the whole of Christendom under which the said social and faniilv evils would be perpetuated and the Council made a valid marriage to depend everywhere on the piesence of an officinhng Roman priest, and it claimed for tho Papal authorities power to create impediments to marriage end power to dissolve the marriage tie, as the following extracts from 'Canons and Decrees' show: 'Those who otherwise than in the presence of the parish priest and in the presence of two or three witnesses, shall attempt to contract matrimony, the Holy Svnocl renders altogether incapable of contracting matrimony, and decrees that contracts of this kind are null and void. If anyone saith that those degrees only of consanguinity and affinity which are set down in Leviticus, can hinder matrimony from being contracted and dissolve it when contracted, and that the Church cannot dispense in some of those degrees or establish that others may hinder and dissolve it, let him be anathema. If anyone saith that the Church could not establish impediments dissolving marriage, or that she erred in establishing them, let him be anathema.' "(3) And whereas this legislation of Trent, intended to apply to all- Protestant as well as Roman Catholic marriages (see tho Rev. Father Coffey. 'New Zealand Tablet, February 16, 1311), was for reasons known to the Vatican proclaimed in a merely partial and sporadic way, and made binding only in Italy. France, Spain, Austria, and sundry other places (see 'Catholic Marriages' by Dr. Cleary, nages 121 and 20), has created in some Roman Catholic countries, and especially in Italy, a strong antagjiiism to priestly meddling with marriage and lias induced the State to declare civil maTriage alone legal, so that neither priest nor Pope in Italy can solemnise a marriage (see 'The Papal Conquest,' by Dr. A. Robertson, page 46), and as these civil marriages haye been declared by tho Pope mere concubinage, a social situation has been made by tho Roman Church which tho late W. E. Gladstone did not shrink from calling horrible and revolting in itself, and dangerous to tho morals of society, the strength of the family and the. peace of lifo ('Vaticanism,' page 27). "?■!) And whereas up to Easter 1908 Protestant Christendom had for mora than 300 years been free from the obnoxious sido of the tridentine marriage legislation, but on that date tho decree Ne Temere was issued by the Vatican and promulgated in Protestant countries with the exception of the 'whole of Germany' (see Rev. Father Coffey, 'Tablet,' February IG, 1911), as well as in' Roman Catholic countries, and whereas this decree declares all marriages solemnised by Protestant ministers and civil registrars where the contracting parties' are (a) Roman Catholics, (b) Roman Catholics and Protestants (mixed marriages), (c) Roman Catholics who have renounced Romanism to be null and void, and tho parties living in sin. • "(.i) And whereas this decree has led wives to desert husbands and husbands to desert-wives, and whereas this decree has been proclaimed in New Zealand, and is already part of the 'Catechism' of doctrine No. 2 issued by Archbishop Redwood (see questions 312, 313, page 57), and a foul stigma thus attached to not a fewrespectable and law-abiding families in our Dominion; and while in New Zealand marriages of the class mentioned above are described as concubinage, those same marriages in Germany are said by tho Papal authorities to bo valid and binding in the sight of God and in the eyes of the Roman Church. "(G) Tho Assembly as hereby overtured do give due consideration to tho encroachment by this decree on our laws and on the civil and religious rights of the people, and call upon the Government to devise means for the protection of the social interests and civil rights of parties affected by the decree or to take such measures as the Assembly may see fit." The following representatives of tho Christchurch Presbytery to the General Assembly, which sits in Dunedin on November 8, have been apnointed:—Revs. Dr. Erwin, J. Mackenzie,!'. Tait, G. G. Howes, J. Pringle, W. R. Campbell, S. E. Hill. J. Johnston, J. Wilson, J. Craig, R. W. Jackson, D. D. Rodger, T. E. Riddle, and tho Metbven minister. Substitutes :—The Revs. F. Rule, T. Miller, and R. Wood.