AMERICA AND DIVORCES.

Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 184, 6 August 1925, Page 12

AMERICA AND DIVORCES.

HALF WON BY FRAUD.

SAN FRANCISCO, July; 7,

Asserting that 50 per cent-of divorces are attained probably by fraud » r collusion'; and that the divorce rate in the United States is increasing faster than that of any other country, the of Marriage Asociation will ask the New Orleans triennial convention of tiie Protestant Episcopal Church of America to forbid the re-marriage of divorced The Episcopal Church sanctions the re-marriage of innocent parties &i divorce, based on infidelity. The association is starting a movement for the Repeal of this canon and attacks it as uijscriptural, as' contrary to the practice --'of the early Christian church and as illegal in regard to church law. The canon compels the innocent party to produce : Court records to prove innocence. I "Tnasniuch as in the opinion of • many judges ,/at least one half of all the divorces? granted are probably fraudulent or 'collusive, and as 80 or 90 per cent ar| granted in default, without defence or rebuttal, how is it possible;"' , the association's statement asked.\"for bishops 'unskilled in law vand- without secular .powers, to form A', right judgment in'; such cases?'*: . -.-:;'> -. '-'•• The association further' Estates, that the canon was passed ,in> 1868Vby only one general convention, wfhereas the church constitution required action' two successive conventions. Xowhfere in the New Testament is there a single word in, support of remarriage, the association contends, and neither fin the Old Testament nor the Xew Testament is there even an indication to Support the modern theory that infidelity or any other sin, as "iuch, ■ dissolve! a marriage, which is not a. mere contract, but a state or condition. "This history of tbe fatal provision," the statement, says, "after half a century of' experience", has . proved to be the ever-ready wedge of "collusion, fraud and falsehood." The association's president is Rev. Milo H. Gates, of New York, and its executive committee, includes, among others. Bishop Manning, of New York. Tt was Bishop Manning's strict adherence-: to the canon in question that j>rccipitited, in, 1921, the controversy between] him 'arid the Rev. Dr. Percy Stickneif Grant, who wished to marry Mrs. Philip Lydic, twice a divorcee; once from the American millionaire, Mr. W. E. D. Stokes. The engagement was broken .on May 26, 1924, and shortly afterwards, Dr. Grant resigned from the pastorate of the Church of the Ascension, and retired.