IRELAND AND PAPAL DECREES.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXVI, Issue 11629, 10 May 1912, Page 1

IRELAND AND PAPAL DECREES.

In a letter to the National Review, Mr Cope Cornford makes statements which, if correct, are of grave importance as to the" effect of the Ne Temere and MoUi proprio decrees i in Ireland. He states 'chat in a letter dated March •>eth 1908, read in all the churches ot the diocese, the Archbishop of Dublin thus explained the effect ot the iNe Temere decree:—"Henceforth m ireland, as generally throughout . the church, no mixed marriages :can bo validlv contracted except in the presence 'of the narish priest and wto witnesses." The Archbishop, it is said, went on to describe the rescript granted -bv Pope Pius VI. iu 1785, under which a' mixed marriage contracted in the presence of a minister of another religion "or of a merely civil official, ' was" declared valid, as a "concession to human weakness now at an end." With regard to the Motu proprio decree promulgated in November last, Mr Cornford points out that its effect is automatically and instantly to excommunicate and to deprive of the right' of participation in spiritual benefits a Roman Catholic who takes any step directly or indirectly in a civil or criminal matter to bring any clerical nerson before a lay tribunal. "Thus,"~he continues, "an official such an an Attorney-General or Crown solicitor, or judge taking ordinary legal steps without clerical permission to enforce the attendance even as a witness of auv of the privileged (clerical) class, or to" take or obtain judgment against .him, becomes excommunicated, and his excommunication cannot be removed except by the Pope himself. There are in Ireland to-dav, as in the time of James 11., a Roman Catholic Chancellor, a Roman Catholic Attorney-General, and a Roman Catholic Solicitor-General, also a Roman Catholic Chief Crown Solicitor." Cases, according to Mr Cornford, have recently occurred in connection with applications for the renewal and granting of licenses for the sale of intoxicants, where priests desirous of opposing in the cause of temperance have refused to be sworn and give evidence as ordinary witnesses, because they have not obtained the leave of their bishop. These priests have asked, and been allowed, 'to make unsworn statements to the Court in support of their views. In another case a coachmaker was claiming compensation from the country for the burning down of his place of business. , The parish' priest who lived across the road immediately opposite saw all that occurred, but he.refused to accept the. subpoena, and declined to give evidence on account of the decree. Prior to the promulgation of the decree priests used, says Mr Cornford, to appear in the witness-box, and be duly sworn in the ordinary way. The point is an important one in Ireland, because cases are constantly arising with which priests are connected, such as suits for the administration of deceased estates, or in which thoy have acted as legal and general advisers, and are required by the Court as witnesses or as parties to the litigation. "It will be understood," concludes Mr Cornford, "that while the decree has no legal effect, it has so powerful a moral influence that the whole administration of justice in Ireland is thereby affected.