CHURCH MARRIAGE

Manawatu Times, Volume 61, Issue 194, 18 August 1936, Page 3

CHURCH MARRIAGE

BIG DIVORCE ISSUE,

BAN ON CO-RESPONDENTS.

LONDON, May 23,

Whether divorced people should be excluded from tho Sacraments “for such time as may be thought proper’’ is to be decided at the next meeting of the Church Assembly next month. The suggestion was made by a joint committee of the Convocations of Canterbury and York, presided over oy the Bishop of Salisbury. At the Assembly other matters associated with divorce aTe to be discussed. Among them is the recommendation that there should bo two forms of mar _ riage “contract’’ —one to bo that of the Church, in which the parties solemnly undertake never, in. any circumstances, to sue for divorce, aid the other for those who are not imposed to make that vow; the second ceremony would not take place m tho Church. The ban on the re-marriage of divorced people in the Church :s now being extended to co-respondents, too. This inhibition, which started in a few isolated instances, is spreading. , , The archbishops and bishops uave instructed their clergy that no tnirriage may take place in any Church if e'-her of the parties to it has been u..-orced. The Archbishop of Canterbury has declared that “the pripor place for such marriages is the register office.”

A typical Maori welcome awaited the new Bishop of Wellington, the Rt. Rev. H. St. B. Holland, at Otaki when he visited the township on Sunday in response to an invitation made to him a few days ago. A largo number of Natives, including all the Maori clergj in the diocese, had gathered in the courtyard in front of the Raukawa meeting house, where tho addresses were made. Tho Bishop of Aotearoa, the Rt. Rev. F. A. Bennett, met the new Bishop of Wellington, with Mrs. Holland and their family, at the gates and escorted them to the Raukawa courtyard. A special Maori choir from Hastings was present, the choir and its work being the subject of many comnlimentary remarks