THE COLENSO CASE.
(From Some News.) The J udicial Committee of the Privy Council have given judgment in this case. The Lords present were the Lord Chancellor, Lord Eingsdown, Lord Cranworth, the Master of the Bolls, and Dr. Lushington. The facts of this case have already been published. It appears that the Bishop of Natal had been summoned before the Bishop of Cape Town, as metropolitan of the Church in Africa, to answer charges of heresy. He protested and did not appear. The tribunal, however, found him guilty, and sentenced him to be deprived of his see. He appealed to the Privy Council on the ground that the Bishop of Cape Town had not authority to deal with his case. The Bishop of Cape Town, on the other hand, urged that if there was any power of appeal it was not to the Privy Council, bat to the Archbishop of Canterbury. The Lord Chancellor has now delivered the judgment of the Council. It is wholly in favor of Bishop Colenso, and is shortly to this effect: That, although the Bishop of Cape Town has no authority at all over the Bishop of Natal, yet, on the same principle, neither the Bishopof Natal nor any other colonial bishop not created under special legislative provision has any authority over any one else. They are bishops and nothing more. They are not bishops of any place or over anybody in particular. If their ordination of itself conveys the capacity of exercising spiritual functions such as confirmation and ordination, they of course possess that capacity ; but they have no authority to exercise it. They are, in short, in very much the same position as any clergyman of the Church of England who is not appointed to a definite cure. He is a priest or a deacon, but he holds no local office, and has no authority over any one. They are, in fact, as much bishops in the Feejee Islands as in their nominal dioceses, and on the other hand they are to no greater extent bishops in their dioceses than they would'be in tho Feejee Islands. The prineiples from which these sweeping results follow are very clear end simple. It is laid down as clear upon principle, that after the establishment of an independent legislature in any colony or settlement there is no power in the Crown to create of its mere prerogative “’any ecclesiastical corporation whose status, rights, and authority the colony should be required to recognise,” still less to establish s metropolitan see, with jurisdiction over the sees of other independent settlements. Now, the letters patent of Dr. Gray and Dr. Colenso were issued after distinct legislative powers had been granted both to the settlement of the Cape of Good Hope and to the colony of Natal. The clauses, therefore, in the letters patent of these two bishops, and of all other colonial bishops in a similar position, which seem to have such an effect, are simply null and void. It was not even legally competent for the Bishop of Natal voluntarily to give, or for the Bishop of Cape Town to receive, any such ecclesiastical jurisdiction.
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Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 5, Issue 270, 26 May 1865, Page 3
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526THE COLENSO CASE. Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 5, Issue 270, 26 May 1865, Page 3
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