CATHOLIC ATTITUDE TO DIVORCE FURTHER EXPLAINED

Grey River Argus, 14 November 1949, Page 7

CATHOLIC ATTITUDE TO DIVORCE FURTHER EXPLAINED

Pope’s Decree Part of Campaign WELLINGTON, Nov. 13 _ A high authority of the Catholic Church, emphasised that the church in New Zealand had had no official advice about the decision of the Pope, as reported in a cable message from the Vatican City on the position of Catholic Judges regarding the administration of divorce law's. It appeared that the Pope had made a pronouncement on a matter of discipline w'hich in its final effect W'as the concern the Bishon in charge Qf a particular diocese. It would appear, he said, that judges in New' Zealand would not be affected so far as the administration of the law of the country was concerned, and that it w'as rather an insistence on thei r standing as Judges as opposed to their being mere functionaries who ruled on cases already decided by consent or collusion outside the. Court. Complaint about that had often been made, he said, by a former Chief Justice, Sir Michael Myers. The Pope’s pronouncement would appear to be directed at certain countries behind the iron curtain where religion was held to be subject to the State and where the State though denying the Church’s right to call marriage a sacrament, still dictated to the Church what the l sacrament should mean. ROME, Nov. 12 Unofficial Vatican observers claimed to see part of a long-term campaign in the call made by the Pope this week to Catholic judges throughout the world not to grant divorce decrees. They said that the Pope’s decree, in which he outlined the w'hole moral basis on which a Catholic judge should apply the law, appeared to be linked to other recentt Vatican ordinances. They cited these as:— 1. The decree issued earlier this year by the Holy Office excommunicating Communists. 2. The explicit ban on artificial insemination. 3. The “Papal exhortation” made on Thursday for a “crusade of prayer” for the protection of the Holy Places in Palestine. In this the Pope sent a message to the. Roman Catholic. Bishops throughout the world expressing apprehension over the future of the Holy Places in Palestine and appealed to Christians to pray for a just solution of the problem of the Holy Places. The Pope’s mandate to Catholic judges not to grant divorce decrees occurred, almost incidentrlly, in one sentence' of a 4000-wOrd speech which the Pope read to several hundred Italian jurists who were attending a conference in Rome and who had an audience w'ith the Pope at Castel Gandolfo. As is the usual practice In the Vatican, a revised authoritative version of the Pope’s speech w'as printed in full the next day in the Vatican newspaper, Osservatore Romano. The Pope laid dowm four cardinal points for the guidance of a Catholic judge: 1. A Catholic judge cannot throw' the responsibility of his decision on the law—that he is co-rcsponsible with the Legislature for the effects of the law’. 2. No judge may ever oblige anyone to do anything intrinsically immoral. 3. A judge cannot recognise or approve of an unjust law. Sometimes, however, a judge may apply an unjust law' to “avoid a greater | evil.” The Pope then added: “In particular a Catholic judge, except for reasons of the greatest importance, cannot pronounce a civil divorce decree for a marriage which is valid in the eyes of God and of the Church." Vatican commentators later said that this meant, in effect, that in countries practising the British and American systems of law'. Catholic judges should avoid presiding over divorce courts and should not pronounce divorce decrees. They added however, that there might be special cases w'hich would absolve a judge from this in order to avoid a greater evil. MATTER EOR INDIVIDUAL 1 They said that the whole question w'as, to some extent, one of conscience—a matter to be settled in each case by the individual in accordance w'ith the proclaimed teachings of the Catholic Church. They said the Pope wap the ultimate authority of the Catholic Church and that statements by him, such as that on divorce, were definitely mandatory. unless their application would result in a great harm not specifically seen by the Pope.