NE TEMERE DECREE

New Zealand Times, Volume XLIX, Issue 11248, 28 June 1922, Page 5

NE TEMERE DECREE

CONTROVERSY REVIVED IS NEW ZEALAND LAW HELD IN CONTEMPT? SYDNEY PRIEST SAYS “YES.” By Telegraph.—Pre=s \ssu.—Copyright. Australian and N.Z. Cable Association (.Received June 27, 10.15 p.m.) SYDNEY. June 27. The Xe Temere decree controversy has been revived. Captain Chaplain Wilson, who has just returned from a visit to New Zealand, addressing a gathering in the Lyceum Hall, stated that Ati Massey had assured him that tho Me Temere decree had. been made inoperative in the Dominion as tlio outcome of the recent amendment of the Marriage Act. Captain Wilson added that Mr Massey not only denied that the amendments of the Marriage Act were being flouted by a section, but emphasised the point that anyone flouting them w’ould be dealt with irrespective of creed or station. Father Forrest, of the Sacret Heart Monastery, Kensington, in a letter to the press replying to Captain Wilson, says; “I now "flatly and categorically deny this ridiculous assertion of Mr Massey’s. A thousand enactments' of any State Parliament cannot render inoperative a law that the Catholio Church imposes upon her members. The Ne Temere decree is still in full force in New Zealand.” Father Forrest declares that a priest, who recently returned from New Zealand, assured him that he personally broke the stupid New Zealand amendment of the Marriage Act, as did scores of other prieets. Father Forrest adds that the priests of New Zealand • “intend to treat this absurd law' with supreme contempt, and no one knows better than the Prime Minister that it is beyond his power to enforce it.”