CHURCHES’ ATTITUDE.

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 304, 8 December 1936, Page 4

CHURCHES’ ATTITUDE.

MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE Effect Of Lambeth Conference Report. Because Mrs. Simpson is a divorced person, there is no authority for marriage to the King within the rites of the Church of England. In so far as the King worships as a Presbyterian in Scotland, the Church of Scotland would permit a marriage because of the grounds of Mrs. Simpson's second divorce, but could not sanction one on the grounds of the first, incompatability, w'hich it does not recognise as a reason for disunion. However exalted either party may be, no priest of the Church of England has authority to join two persons in marriage if one has been divorced, a prominent Anglican clergyman said yesterday. According to the reports of th < Lambeth Conference of 1930, the view was held “that the Church must desn with questions of divorce and with whatever threatens the security of woman and the stability of the home. Mindful of our Lord’s words: “What therefore God hath joined together, let no man put asunder,” it reaffirms “as our Lord's principle and standard of marriage, a lifelong and indissoluble union, for better, for worse, of one man with one woman to the exclusion of all others on either side, and calls on all Christian people to maintain and bear witness to this standard.

Attitude Clearly Stated. “In cases of divorce (a) the conference . . . recommends that the marriage of one, whose former partner is still living, should not be celebrated according to the rites of the Church . (c) finally, it would call attention to the Church’s unceasing responsibility for the spiritual welfare of all her members who have come short of her standard in this as in any other respect, and to the fact that the Church’s aim, individually and socially, is reconciliation to God and redemption from sin. It therefore urges all bishops and clergy to keep this aim before them.” An even stronger outline of the Church’s views is given in the report of the joint committees of the Convocations of Canterbury and York, made last year. "We urge," the report states, “that in no circumstances should the ‘second marriage’ in the lifetime of the former partner be solemnised with the rites of the Church; because the refusal of such solemnisation will be the way in which the Church will testify to the life-long character of the marriage bond, and to its belief that a divorce a vinculo is wrong.” The Church of Scotland. According to the Rev. A. P. Sym, of Edinburgh, who has issued a manual on marriage in Scotland by authority of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, the only grounds on which tbe Church of Scotland recognises divorce are those recognised by the civil law of Sctland, desertion and unfaithfulness (adultery). The Church permits the remarriage of the Innocent party, but prohibits its ministers from officiating at the marriage of either the divorced person and. in. the case of unfaithfulness, the paramour. An Auckland Presbyterian minister pointed out yesterday that while Mrs Simpson divorced both her husbands, her first divorce, on the grounds of incompatability, was not recognised by the Church of Scotland. Ministers of the Church of Scotland could, _ therefore, not officiate at another riage.