MARRIAGE PROBLEM.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 1 February 1929, Page 9

MARRIAGE PROBLEM.

POSITION OF DIVORCEES. ENGLISH CHURCH ATTITUDE. The recent London mesasge stating that controversy bais ibo©n aroused at Homo by the instruction, of the Bishop of St. Albans, Dr. M. B. Furs©, to. his clergy not to marry a divorced or uaibap tised person has caused some (surprise in Anglican Church circles in Auckland, as the bishop’’S' direction appears to lb© only in keeping with the practice in the. Dominion, says the Now Zealand ‘‘Herald.” The law of the church absolutely forbids, the giving otf the marriage rites of the Church to any person who has bden divorced, and anyone seeking marriage is required to sign a declaration stating that they have 1 not been divorced front a person now The Church further requires that one at least of the parties to a, marriage shall have been baptised. Th© question whether distinction ought not to b© mlade between guilty and innocent person’s in certain caisds of divorce has often been raised! in church, courts, and .the Lambeth Conference, at its last me'dting in 1920, definitely left th© matter to the juris diction of the regional churches. At the General Synod held in Auckland in 1922, on| th© motion of Bishop Aver ill, now Archbishop', the following resolution was carried:

‘‘ In view of the fact that th© Lambeth Conference admits the right of national or regional churches within out communion toi deal with cakes which fall! within the exception mentioned in the records of Our Lord’s words in St. Matthew’s Gospel, under provision which such church may lay ’down,, the primate be respectfully re quested’ to appoint & recess commiittee to consider tli'© matter fully and report to the avekt session 'of synod.’’ It is doubtful i'f such a committee’ was ever appointed, and in any. ctv'sei it has certainly never report ©d. The. attitude of the church ha ; s hitherto boon that the mainiag© bond is absolutely indissoluble: ‘‘Whom God hath joined let no mam put asunder.” But as a matter of fact, there is considerable uneasiness of eonscienc© on the part of a section of th© clergy, Who fear that injustice may be donie by withholding the blessing of the church from am innocent divorce© seeking remarriage. There have been cakes of clergy in London defying th© law of the church and marrying people so eireuinusttaneed. In the meantime such marriages arc absolutely forbidden throughout the Dominion, but there ate controversial questions involved which are liable to be raised again in the 1 church courts from time to time.