CATHOLICS AND MARRIAGE LAWS

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 13291, 29 January 1914, Page 3

CATHOLICS AND MARRIAGE LAWS

DIVORCE REGARDED AS QUITE UNLAWFUL. NE TEMERE DECREE AND MIXED MARRIAGES. (Press Assn.—By Telegraph— Copyright.) (Received Jan. 29, 10.30 a.m.) ADELAIDE, Jan. 29. Archbishop O'Reilly, m an official statement of the Roman Catholic Church on the marriage law, said that his Church looked upon divorce, from whatever cause, as absolutely unlawful. Marriage to them was essentially sacred. The civil law nullified many laws of the Church, and claimed tbe right to nullify the contract of marriage. Power over the sacrament of marriage the Church held was inalienably hier own. The Ne Temere decree was merely the assertion of a right -vyhich the Church had always claimed. A Catholic must be married m the presence of a priest, otherwise it was no marriage, before God. He con demned mixed marriages. If a man was a non-Catholic the children, must be brought up as Catholics.

Mixed marriages were once again discountenanced m a decree which was recently read m all the Roman churches of Australia. The decree was issued by the Council of Sydney m 1885, and it Mas directed that" it be read maU the Australian churches on the second Sunday after Epiphany, when the gospel relating to the marriage feast of Cana is always read. The decree is merely of an advisory character, m accordance with the law of the- Church, and counsels that where mixed marriages are absolutely necessary they must be celebrated by a priest, whilst the children must be brought up -m the Roman Catholic faith, and the non-Catholic fiarty must not interfere with tho reigioh of the Catholic party. The decree should not be confounded with the Ne Temere decree issued by Pope Pius X m 1908, which was simply an extension of the decree form tilated by the Council of Trent between the years 1545 and 1563. This decree directed that all mixed marriages must be celebrated before a priest m order to make them valid m the eyes of tho Church.-