SIN OF ADULTERY

Northern Advocate, 30 May 1936, Page 7

SIN OF ADULTERY

THE CHURCH’S ATTITUDE HIGH PLACED OPINIONS. CRIES OF [United Press Association. —By Electric Telegraph. — Copyright.} (Received nOon).

LONDON, May 29.

Cries of li shame” came from members of the Lower House of Convocation when Archdeacon Dudley referred to a clergyman who became the third husband of a woman whose first husband was living, the marriage being conducted with the diocesan bishop’s approval and blessing, and celebrated by a prominent canon. He also referred to a clergyman who divorced his wife owing to adultery, but remarried, after which he was promptly given a better living. This statement was received by further shouts of “shame.” i The House was discussing a motion demanding that remarried divorced persons should not be admitted to sacraments except on the church conditions. Canon Scott-Moncrieff contended that the suggestion that the sacraments should be refused was because divorce and the re-marriage of divorced people were opposed to the will of God. Nevertheless, soldiers were not excommunicated despite a war against God’s will. He added that a man marrying a divorced woman needed grace to make a good second marriage. The Dean of Lincoln declared that he would make adultery a criminal offence, with a penalty of years of hard labour, but would not excommunicate the offender. When an amendment was moved suggesting that sacraments should be withheld from divorced people while the second marriage relations continued, the Dean of Lincoln said that it was offering an inducement to men to desert wives and children in order to receive communion. The amendment was defeated and j the debate adjourned.