MARRIAGE BANNS

Hokitika Guardian, 30 December 1933, Page 6

MARRIAGE BANNS

QUESTION OF PUBLISHING CLERGY AND .LAITY DEBATE , . LONDON, December 22. Should laymen be permitted to publish banns of marriage? This question was recently debated by the House of Clergy and the House of Laity of the English Church Assembly. The Bamm /of Marriage Measure, permitting the publication of banns by licensed lay readers, was approved by 80 votes to (51 in the. House of Clergy. Canon Brook of Doncaster said the measure failed to .meet the difficulty they wanted to. meet—cases in which there were banns to be read and no clergymen to read them. It was sometimes almost as difficult to find a licenced lay reader at the last moment, as it was to find a clergyman.

Rev E. D. Merritt, London, objected to a statement that publication by notice attached to a church door might be sufficient. Nobody, he said ever took the trouble to read those numerous documents posted up outside the church .door. The local surveror of taxes and people of that description posted up all sorts of documents, including notices about dog licences. Who ever looked at themr The Rev E. B. Lucas, Vicar of Kettering, asked if people listened to announcements in. church, and if they did listen were they able to distinguish tiiem ? If people knew that they would not hear banns .obscurely announced in church they would accustom them-, selves to looking on the church' door to see whether their Johnny was going to marry somebody else’s Jenny.

Finally the ■authorisation-was extended to any layman to be ordained a deacon and authorised by the Bishop oi the Diocese.” Discussing this amendment, and the reference to sex, Prebendary J. P. Baker, Vicar of Mossley Hill,, Liverpool, recalled that “one noble bachelor seemed to go in deadly fear that lie would one day have his banns published by a female church-warden.” Both Houses approved tlie measure.