NE TEMERE DECREE. REGARDING MIXED MARRIAGES. OVERTURE TO PRESBYTERIAN ASSEMBLY.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXII, Issue 64, 13 September 1911, Page 10

NE TEMERE DECREE. REGARDING MIXED MARRIAGES. OVERTURE TO PRESBYTERIAN ASSEMBLY.

faf tfitee»A?H— fafiss association.] CHRTSTCHTJECH, lZlh Sept. Afc the session of the Ghristchurrh Pl'cebytery thus morning the Hew B. j Wood presenLed fell overture legarding j the Ne Temere decree for submission to the Oehera! A^spmbly. Tbo overture having been framed by him. he withdrew his motion for the Petting np j of a committee 1o frame such un over* I ture, mid gave notice of this overture j for .discussion at next meeting of the [ Presbytery f»--j "It is hereby ovettured by the PresI bytery of, Chnstthurch to the General ! Assembly of ihe Pfpsbytcrian Church ! idd'ited to meoi. afc Dtinedin on Bth No vember. 1311. "(1) That whereas the histdvy of prelleforttiatlon tim«s shows that grave scandals and serious social evils afose | from the aebion of the authorities of | the Euinazi Catholic Church in framing imscriptura-1 regulations concerning marI liage, these evils being so clamant in Scotland th»t th« Book of Discipline of i 560 states that tho Hoffian Church had so contemned and weakened marriage 'th;tf. (bo persons could never be as* auifcd of enntiiiuance "if the bishops and preliiics should list to dissolve thei eATne.' (gee 'Pteformation,' % Joha Knox, eciited by Lennox, p. 411.) "(2) And wheteas tte Council of Trent 4in its t\venty-fotirth ■ session in 1563, in«tea-d of reformiiig 6ush abuses, passed all elaborate code of legislation intended to - apply to the wholo of Christendom under which the said social and family e\»il*' would be perpetuated .'and inereased-tH'or the Council made a. valid marriage to depend everywhere on th« , pf *senc« .of an ttfficiating RomaA 'prw*t, and it claimed* for the Papal anthotitie.s power. to create^ impedimente to inarmge- and power^to dissolve the* mar. fiage tie, as the following extracts from 'Canons arid Decrees' show :— 'Those who otherwise than -in the presence of the pa"fish pTiesfc and in the presence of two or three witnesses, shall, attempt toVontract niatrimony, the Holy Synod fenders altogether incapable- of oontfact* ing matrimony, and decrees that contracts of this kind are nulf- and- void. If anyone saith that those, degrees only of «on-sanguinity and , affinity 'which are set down in Leviticus, , can hinder tnatfimony from being contracted and dissolve it when contracted, ahd that the Church cannot dispense if* sonic of those degrees' cf establish, that" others may hinder land dissolve it, let him be anathema. If anyone saith that the vjunrch could not establish -impediments disfiolv. ing marriage, or, that she erred in <"stafo* nshing'them, let hito be anstheiiia.'. 1 "(3) And whereas this legislation of Trent, intended to apply to all Protes' tant w^ll as Roman Catlfolic m'ar*riages (see the .Rev. father Coffey (New Zealand Tablet, 16th February, lSJll), was for reasons knoivn tc the Vatican proclaimed in a. merely partial and spora* die way, and made binding only in Italy, France, Spain, Austria, and sundry other places (see 'Catholic, Marriages' by Dr. Cleary, pages 121 and 20), has coated in some fionian Catholic countries, and especially in Italy, a strotig antagonism to priestly meddling with' marriage, and has induced the State to declare nvil marriage alone l*gal, so that neither priest nor Pope in Otaly can solemnise a marriage (see 'The Papal Conquest, '""by" Dr. A. llobeHson, page 46). find as these civil mar* riages have been declared by the ope tnei'fe concubiiiagft, a social situation -has been, made by the Roman Church which the- late* W.-Jj. Gladstone did not shrink from calling ''horrible and revolting in itaelf, and dangerous to the morals of society, the strength of the family, and the peace of life ('Vaticanism,' page 27). "(4) And whereas up to Easter, 1808, Protestant Christendom had for more than 300 years been free from the db noxious side of the tridentine marriage legislation, but on that date the decree Ne Temere was issued by the Vatican and promulgated in Protestant countries with the exception of the 'whole of Germany' (see Pvev. Father Coffey, Tablet.16tll February, 1911), as well as in H\o> man Catholic countries, and whereas this decree declares all marriages solemnised by Protestant ministers and civil registrars where the contracting parties are' (a) Roman Catholics, (b) Roman Catholics and Protestantsi (mixed marriages), (c) Roman Catholics who have renounced Romanism, to be .null and void. and the parties living in sin. "(5) And whereas this decree has led wives to desert husbands and husbands to desert wives, and whereas this de* ere£ has been proclaimed in New Zealand, and is already part of the 'Catechism' of doctrine No. 2 issued by Ai'ch* bishop Redwood (s<*e questions 312, 313, p»ge 57), and a foul ?tigma thus attached to not a few respectable and lawabiding families in our Dominion ; and while in New Zealand marriages of the class mentioned abovfe are described as cononbinagp, those sam« marriage* m Germany an? said by the Papal authorities to be valid 'and biiKilng in the sight of Ood and in tho eyes of the Roman Church. "(6) Th<» Assembly as "hereby overtnrcd do «',vo due consideration to the encroachioont by thia decree on 'our laws and on th© civil and religious rights of the people, and call ttpou tho Govern* ment to devise ine;uis for tho protection of the social interests and civil Tights of parties affenled by the decree, or to I take such measures as tho Assembly may cc? fit." Tho following represwi'-iitives of the Chrisk'hurch Presbytery 1o Hi* General j Assembly, which sit*; *in Dueedin ou Bth November, have been appointed :— Revs. Dr. - Erwin, J, Afcckenzh, T. Tait. G. H. He* ra . .T. I'rinfle, W. ft. L'AmpbeU, S. JS. fiill, J. Joh,wtonp, .r. \VU-son, J. Cnig, V,. \V. .Tac£pon, D. |D. Rodger. T. E. PMtlie, ond the I Methven mlhkvev. Hubsijtutos— Revs I k\ Rule, T. Miller, and R. Wood.