Bishop Claims Polygamy 'Honest'

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30215, 21 August 1963, Page 21

Bishop Claims Polygamy 'Honest'

(Special Correspondent N.ZJ’.A.)

TORONTO, August 20. A Nigerian bishop yesterday questioned Christian prohibiten of polygamy and said the African practice of having three or more wives was more honest than the Western idea of • “taking one wife, divorcing her. taking another, sand so on.” The Rt. Rev. S. O. Odutola (Ibadan), addressing 2000 delegates to the Anglican Congress, mentioned the Profumo scandal in Britain and the high divorce rate in Western countries. Missionaries “have been telling us ‘one man. one woman,’ or what you call monogamy . . . well, you ane not all that good. We have honest polygamy,” he said.

Bishop Odutola’s remarks took other delegates aback. The Rit. Rev. Mervyn Stockwood, Bishop of Southwark. England, said in reply: “I’m a bachelor. My definition of

monogamy is one wife too many; but seriously I think a married man should answer this one. ‘‘l do feel, however, that I don't see how you can have anything in the nature of a Christian home ... I can’t see how our Land would look upon polygamy as being at all proper,” he said. Bishop Stockwood said he disapproved of evangelists who went to Africa and told converts they must give up all wives but one. “I can well see the necessity of achieving this in certain areas by stages and not all at once,” he said. Purity Of West

The Rt. Rev. R. S. Emerich (Detnoait), Bishop of Michigan, said he feared Africans looked too much on the West as a place of absolute Christian purity. “When one looks beneath the surface one sees the most terrible things,” he said. “I can see the West African bishop is hurt by the attitude of some missionaries from the West. Perhaps some of his hurt comes from a failure to appreciate the deepness and terribleness of the sin of the world.” Later, at a press conference, Bishop Emerich said: “In the long run, the only sexual relationship that gives real dignity to women is monogamy. People who attack monogamy are really attacking the stature of women.” Laymen’s Role Laymen should be permitted to perform services of Holy Communion, baptism, marriage and burial, the Congress was told by Canon Francis Synge, of Christchurch College, Christchurch. A shortage of priests in remote areas meant many Anglicans must miss the Eucharist, he said. “The Anglican Church makes much of sacraments. It even declares that the Eucharist is generally necessary to salvation. In order to have valid Eucharist, so runs the doctrine, it is necessary to have a priest.”

Canon Synge said the need for congregrations without priests was becomng more urgent all the time. “Partly because the number of priests is diminishing and partly because the very ease of travel, which makes it easy for a priest to cover large areas, also plants congregations in remote regions, and partly because political and economic changes are likely to leave congregations stranded without a priest, the pressure of the world is felt heavily upon congregations.

“In such situations the need of the Eucharist is increasingly urgent,” he said.