DIVORCES BY CLERGY

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19028, 30 May 1936, Page 15

DIVORCES BY CLERGY

ARCHBISHOP CRITICAL SA c; R A AIENT ('(>N DITJL( >NB MOVE FOR RESTRICTION (Elp.c. Tel. Copyright—United Press Assn.) (Reed. Mav .‘lO, 2.45 ]>.i n.) LONDON, May 29.

(.'■lies lit' “Shame” enmo from members of iho Lower 11 on so of t lie Convocation ivlion Aroluloaeon 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 lining celebrated by a prominent canon.

He also referred to it clergyman who divorced his wife owing to adultery, but remarried, after which he promptly wits given a better living.

This statement was received with further shouts of “Shame.” ' The House was discussing a motion demanding that remarried divorced people should not be admitted to the sacraments, except on the church conditions. Canon Scott Moncrieff contended that the suggestion that the sacraments should lie refused was because tlie divorce and remarriage of divorced people was opposed t<> the will of God. Nevertheless, soldiers were not excommunicated despite wat being against God’s will.

He added that a mail marrying a divorcee needed grace to make good a second marriage.

The Dean of Lincoln declared that he would make adultery a criminal offence with a penalty of a year’s hare labour, but: he would not excommunicate the offender. When an amendment was moved suggesting that the sacraments should be withheld from divorced people while second marriage relations continued, the Dean of Lincoln said it was offering ari inducement, for a man to desert his wife and children in order to receive communion.

The amendment was defeated and the debate was adjourned.